The Fredericksburg Nationals (11-9) won for the second consecutive night, defeating the Charleston RiverDogs (8-12) 5-3 at Virginia Credit Union Stadium. Cristhian Vaquero drove in four runs, including a three-run home run, and the FredNats’ bullpen combined for 11 strikeouts over four innings.
Here’s the full press release:
The Fredericksburg Nationals (11-9) won for the second straight night, beating the Charleston RiverDogs (8-12) 5-3 behind another headlining performance from right fielder Cristhian Vaquero and Single-A’s best bullpen.
On “A Minecraft Movie Night” at Virginia Credit Union Stadium, the FredNats handed the ball to starter Angel Roman, who entered the night with an ERA above 17 and was coming off his most difficult outing of the season. He again got off to a slow start, allowing single runs in each of the first two innings. He gave up two hits in the first and three hits in the second and looked like he may not last past then.
However, with the bases loaded in the second, he forced a groundout to third to strand all three runners. From there, he settled down and was fantastic.
The groundout started a stretch of nine straight batters retired by Roman, who fought through another two baserunners in the fifth inning without allowing a run.
By then, his offense had tied the game. The first eight FredNats went down in order against Charleston’s Jose Urbina before Kelvin Diaz pulled a line drive into left field for a two-out single in the third inning and stole second ahead of Vaquero. Vaquero came into the day having already posted two three-hit games in the series and was fresh off a multi-RBI performance Friday night. In his first act Saturday, the FredNat outfielder laced a single up the middle that drove in Diaz to draw the game to 2-1.
In the fourth, Fredericksburg pounced again. Jorgelys Mota reached on an error, advanced on a passed ball and scored when Nate Rombach whacked a single through the right side. Mota ran through a stop sign at third base and showed off his speed to tie the game 2-2.
In the fifth, after Roman’s efforts, the FredNats saw Moises Gallardo reach on a Charleston error, Elijah Nunez draw a walk and Kelvin Diaz bunt both of them over, giving Vaquero another RBI chance and he didn’t disappoint.
The FredNat switch-hitter stepped to the plate and launched a sky-scraping home run that touched down in the RiverDog bullpen to give the FredNats five unanswered runs and a 5-2 lead. Vaquero’s second home run of the season gave him a FredNat single-game season high four RBI. He’d finish the night 2/4 and now has nine hits in the first five games of the series.
From there, the FredNat bullpen locked things down again. The group that entered the night with a Single-A-best 2.92 ERA saw Gavin Bruni strike out the side in the sixth, Robert Cranz go six up, six down with six strikeouts and Merrick Baldo punch out two more. Of the bullpen’s 12 outs, 11 of them came by way of the strikeout, including seven RiverDogs in a row at one point. Baldo gave up a ninth-inning solo shot, but by night’s end, the Fredericksburg bullpen ERA dropped even further to 2.89.
In a 5-3 victory, Roman (1-1) got his first win of the season as Charleston reliever Noah Beal (0-1) stomached the loss. The FredNats secured at least a series split and will go for a series win in game six Sunday with Davian Garcia (1-1, 4.15) on the mound in a 1:35 start.
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