Blue Crabs outlast Newark

Team wins 2nd straight home series

Friday, May 9, 2008

Kyle Nichols, Patrick Osborn, Brandon Ketron and Chad Ehrnsberger all homered to left field for the Blue Crabs, as the team closed out its first homestand of the season with five wins and moved to 7-5 on the season.

‘‘I don’t want us to go up there trying to hit home runs,” said Blue Crabs manager Butch Hobson. ‘‘But we play in a ballpark where the ball flies out to left, and we have some power. Those two things helped us out tonight. You hit a ball on the end of the bat, and it will go over the fence here.”

Ehrnsberger gave the Blue Crabs the lead in the bottom of the third inning with a solo shot that cleared the scoreboard in left field. The second baseman came into the night batting just .097, but went 2 for 4 with a RBI.

‘‘I’ve been feeling comfortable at the plate for about a week now, but it’s just one of those things where you hit the ball well, but you don’t get hits,” Ehrnsberger said. ‘‘That’s just the way it works. Hopefully it evens out, and lately I have been getting some hits.”

Osborn led off the sixth by drilling an off-speed pitch into the left field stands, and Ketron followed suit three batters later with a two-run blast to left-center field.

‘‘[Newark starting pitcher Matt Sweeney] was throwing his changeup a lot to everyone tonight, and he made a couple of good pitches with it,” Osborn said. ‘‘He struck me out with it my first at-bat, but the next time he left it up a little bit, and I was able to get the barrel of the bat to it.”

Nichols’ home run came in the second at-bat in the bottom of the seventh. The designated hitter went 2 for 4 with three RBIs on the night.

In the bottom of the fifth, Nichols drove in two runs with a single up the middle that took a lucky bounce off of second base before Newark shortstop Bobby Hill could make the final out of the inning.

Southern Maryland took a 3-0 lead as Ketron scored easily from third and George Sandel hustled to score from second on the infield hit.

Starting pitcher John Halama picked up his second win of the season for Southern Maryland. The left-hander went 6 2⁄3 innings, allowing four runs on seven hits and striking out five.

After giving up just one hit through five innings, Halama ran into trouble in the seventh when two runs scored on consecutive doubles by Brian Burgamy and Val Majewski.

Halama got the second out of the inning on a groundball to short before being replaced by reliever Travis Wade, who gave up two more runs on a double by Hill and got the final out on a groundball to third.

Reliever Matt Schweitzer worked the eighth and struck out two before closer Derrick DePriest picked up his third save on the year in the ninth.

The Blue Crabs traveled to Long Island on Thursday for a three-game series, then will play a series at Bridgeport, before returning home on May 16 to take on Camden.