By Conor Loftus
JACKSONVILLE (Florida Sports Wire) – Righthander Jeff Lindgren, coming off a loss in his last start, struggled to keep men off base as the Worcester Red Sox (46-40, 7-4) belted three homeruns while overpowering the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (39-46, 8-5) in a 9-2 rout to open a three game series at 121 Financial Ballpark.
Lindgren ran into early trouble in the first inning after allowing Ceddanne Rafaela and Emmanuel Valdez to reach base. Lindgren was able to bounce back inducing an inning ending double play off Worcester clean-up hitter Bobby Dalbec to work his way out of the inning.
Austin Allen started off the bottom of the second with a bang, crushing a solo homer to left off Kyle Barraclough, jumping the Shrimp out to a 1-0 lead.
Lindgren ran into a jam again in the top of the third after an error, walk, and hit batter loaded the bases up for the WooSox. Valdez would make Lindgren pay, clearing the bases with a towering grand slam into the right field bleachers.
Entering the bottom of the third trailing by three the Jumbo Shrimp were able to get one back on a Barraclough balk allowing Jake Mangum to score from third cutting the WooSox lead to 4-2.
Lindgren, who didn’t have his best stuff all night, gave up a two-run bomb to Dalbec after walking Valdez with one out in the fifth. Dalbec’s homerun signaled the end for Lindgren, who exited the ball game allowing six runs on four hits while walking five and striking out four.
Daniel Castano came on to relieve Lindgren (6-3) with one away in the fifth and was rudely greeted by Wilyer Abreu, who took Castano deep to right center to extend the Worcester lead to 7-2.
The Jumbo Shrimp bats went silent the rest of the night besides back-to-back singles in the bottom of the eighth courtesy of Mangum and Jacob Amaya. After tallying four hits through the first four innings, the Jumbo Shrimp only recorded two the rest of the game.
Barraclough picked up his fourth win to improve to 4-0. The teams will be right back at it Saturday. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:35 PM.
The Jumbo Shrimp starting pitcher has still not been announced, the Red Sox will send Dinelson Lamet to the hill.
(SportsDay’s Conor Loftus writes for the Florida Sports Wire.)
(Photo by Jim Brady, Florida Sports Wire/SportsDay Images)
