Kyrie Washington Powers Greenville Past Lakewood

The Lakewood BlueClaws lost to the Greenville (S.C.) Drive 6-5 on Friday night in South Atlantic League play.

Kyri Washington hit two home runs for Greenville, the Boston Red Sox’s low Class A farm team. One broke a 5-5 tie.

Lakewood, a Philadelphia Phillies farm team, left the bases loaded in the top of the eighth inning as Josh Tobias went down on strikes and Damek Tomscha flied out to end a threat. Adam Lau retired the side in the ninth for his third save of the season, getting the final five outs of the game.

The teams have split the first two games of the series and second half of the season with Lakewood (1-1, 30-41) seeing its three-game winning streak en. Lakewood is 4-2 against the Drive (1-1, 37-34) this season.

Washington, who has hit 11 homers this season, also homered in the third inning off starter Franklyn Kilome. Washington’s home run in the seventh came off reliever Luis Morales, who allowed three runs in two innings and fell to 0-3.

Lakewood took a 3-1 lead with three runs in the second. Deivi Grullon hit his third home run of the season, a two-run shot, for a 2-0 lead and Zach Coppola made it 3-1 with a sacrifice fly.

Washington’s first homer of the game tied the score at three.

Lakewood swung ahead 5-3 with two runs in the fifth. Tomscha plated one run with a groundout and Jose Pujols followed with an RBI single.

Luis Alexander homered off Morales to tie the game in the sixth. Jake Cosart was the winner with 2 1/3 innings of scoreless relief. He’s 3-1 this season.

Four BlueClaws had two hits–Coppola, Pujols, Jan Hernandez and Wilson Garcia.

Lakewood left 12 men on base. It was 4-for-18 with runners in scoring position.

NEWSY NOTES: Tobias, Pujols and teammate Luke Leftwich played for the Northern Division All-Stars in their 2-1 win over the host Southern Division All-Stars in the South Atlantic League All-Star Game last Tuesday night.

Leftwich, one of nine pitchers credited with a hold, hurled a scoreless third inning in front of 8,126 fans at the Whitaker Bank Ballpark in Lexington (Ky.), home of the Lexington Legends, a Texas Rangers farm team. He allowed one hit, struck out one and walked none. Of his 10 pitches, six were strikes.

Pujols, who played second base, went 1-for-2, hitting a single and striking out. Pujols, a right fielder, went 0-for-2, striking out once.