Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 30, 1993                   TAG: 9304300123
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BULLS HAND BUCS 5TH LOSS IN ROW, 6-4

The Salem Buccaneers, for whom a lead is getting to be a distant memory, gave the Durham Bulls a six-run head start before regaining some composure behind a solid bullpen, but they couldn't quite finish the job and lost 6-4 Thursday night at Municipal Field.

The Bucs (6-13), firmly ensconced in last place in the Carolina League's Southern Division, lost their fifth straight and sixth of their past seven. Durham, which started the night two games behind Southern Division leader Kinston, reached .500 (10-10) with its fourth straight win.

After a bleak first four innings by the Bucs (four errors, seven hits surrendered by starter Mariano De los Santos, a two-base run-scoring wild pitch), Salem settled down. Credit went to relievers Mike Teich, Kevin Rychel, Jason Christiansen and Jeff McCurry, who worked six shutout innings, facing two batters over the minimum.

"It's a shame we can't get those guys into a situation where they can win," Salem manager Scott Little said. "We've been behind so much that we've had to use McCurry [the closer] and Christiansen [the setup man] just to get them some work."

Once the Bucs got past hard-nosed Bulls starter John Wilder, Ken Bonifay greeted Dirk Blair with a home run over the right field fence to open the seventh.

An out later, Mike Brown cranked another one out to right.

Salem had four hits in the inning but left two on when leadoff man Chance Sanford grounded to second. The rally continued in the eighth when Tony Womack reached on an error by second baseman Tony Graffagnino, took second on failed pickoff by Blair and scored from second on Blair's wild pitch.

The Bucs had the tying run at the plate in the ninth in Womack, but on a 1-1 pitch, he grounded to second to end it.

\ BUCSHOTS: First baseman Joe Calder (.231) was sent to Bradenton and Keith Thomas will be coming in from Class AA Carolina to replace him.

Keywords:
BASEBALL