from Justin Stottlemyre Grasshoppers’ media assistant:
Greensboro, N.C. – Greensboro’s Mike Stanton had just one hit in the game, but it was a big one as the six foot, five inch right fielder hammered the Grasshoppers first home run of the season Tuesday en route to a 6-1 victory over the visiting Hickory Crawdads.
After a scoreless first inning, the Grasshoppers unleashed with the most runs they’ve scored in a single inning this season—four. Mike Stanton was hit by the fourth pitch of the inning by Hickory starter Matt Foust and Tom Hickman, Adam Howard and Jameson Smith followed with a double and back-to-back singles, respectively. After a sacrifice fly by Emilio Ontiveros and a walk, Danny Garcia singled for the final hit of the inning as Stanton, Hickman, Howard and Smith all crossed the plate.
Greensboro (4-2) and Hickory (4-2) then combined for four and a half scoreless innings until Stanton stepped to the plate to leadoff the bottom of the seventh inning and delivered a 385 foot blast over the left-center field wall for the Grasshoppers’ first homer of the season.
The shut out was broken up in the top of the eighth when Jose De Los Santos scored on a wild pitch; however, Greensboro got the run back in the bottom half of the inning on back-to-back singles by Garcia and Hunter Mense.
Brett Durand (1-0) picked up the win after pitching 5.0 scoreless innings in which he allowed just two hits and threw 58 pitches, 42 for strikes. Durand was relieved by Shawn Phillips (2.0 ip), Don Czyz (1.0 ip) and Andrew Battisto (1.0 ip).
Greensboro will look to take the upper hand in the series as the Hoppers play Game 3 of its current four-game series Wednesday against the Hickory Crawdads at 7 p.m.
*****When one of the fans saw that blast by Mike Stanton, they yelled, “That sucker’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG GONE…..”.*****