Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 16, 1993 TAG: 9304160253
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BLUE ROCKS BLUDGEON BUCS 12-1
The unfortunate events at Salem Municipal Field on Thursday night, from the Salem Buccaneers' perspective, ended with one of their infielders on the mound.Not that Don Garvey did a shoddy job in his one inning of work. He did manage to deny the Wilmington Blue Rocks a run. It was more than some of his team's more experienced mound men could manage.
The Rocks rolled out of an hour rain delay in the fifth inning with a thunderstorm entirely of their own creation and finished by bludgeoning the Bucs 12-1 in a Carolina League game. There were 2,983 patrons at the start, substantially fewer at the finish.
"Time to forget about it and go on," said Salem manager Scott Little, whose ballclub slipped one game behind the front-running Kinston Indians in the Southern Division standings.
The Bucs had hoped to go onto better things after entering the rain delay down 3-1. But the Rocks quickly put that notion to rest with two more runs to finish out the fifth inning then piled on six more with the aid of five hits and an error in a grim sixth.
"Realistically, we had no chance after that, but the guys kept swinging the bats and running out ground balls, so I'm happy about that," Little said.
Many of the balls the Rocks (5-2) ran out were moving rapidly toward the fence. Wilmington had 18 hits (giving it 35 in two games) including four doubles. Raul Gonzalez went 4-for-5 and drove in a pair and Gary Caraballo went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and an RBI. Caraballo, a 20-year-old third baseman, is batting .515 with 11 RBI in seven games.
The major story for the Rocks was reliever Robert Toth, a lean right-hander with a pearl stud in his left ear. Thursday, he was a stud, period, throwing five shutout innings for his second victory of the year.
"I had my stuff," he said. "I could control all three of my pitches, especially my fastball. I haven't had my fastball because I haven't pitched that much [five innings coming in]."
Toth was a starter until Mike Fyhrie, a Class AA demotion, bumped him from the rotation.
"Toth was pitching like it was an 0-0 game, and that's good to see," Wilmington manager Ron Johnson said. "He can pitch. It's kind of neat having him looming there in the bullpen. If any of the starters falter, he's in there."
\ BUCSHOTS: Salem's Tony Womack just laughed when asked about his inside-the-park home run, one of the many highlights of the Bucs' 12-11 extra-inning victory over Wilmington on Wednesday night. "This is not a big yard. You'd never expect to hit an inside-the-park homer here." . . . The Rocks faced a six-hour bus ride back home, where they open in a brand new but as yet unnamed field tonight. More than 5,370 tickets were sold in 5 1/2 hours. \
see microfilm for box score
Keywords:
BASEBALL