KANNAPOLIS— Hang on. This could get confusing.
The starting pitchers for Monday night’s Class A minor league baseball game at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium were DarioFerran for Kannapolis and David Farren for Delmarva.
Farren, the Shorebird, gave up two runs in the first inning and looked like he’d be on the ropes all night.
Ferran, the Intimidators’ starter, breezed through the first three innings and seemed in complete control.
Farren wasn’t.
Neither was Ferran.
Got it?
Delmarva scored six runs in each of the fourth and sixth innings to hand the Intimidators their first loss of the season. Kannapolis’ ugly 15-4 defeat included a pair of bases-loaded walks, five other walks that came around to score and three errors leading to three unearned runs.
“I knew we weren’t gonna win them all,”Intimidators manager Razor Shines said. “That’s baseball. Every once in a while, you go out there and everything you do is wrong.”
Delmarva (4-1) couldn’t touch Ferran in the early going. The Kannapolis starter retired the first eight men he faced, striking out four and heading to the fourth inning with a 2-0 lead.
Once there, a walk, single and infield error loaded the bases, and Ferran walked Ruan Wilken to force in a run. After a strikeout, Shayne Ridley sent a two-run single through the right side of the infield and EmmanuelDel Rosario plated the inning’s fourth run with a grounder through the left side.
An error and a single up the middle, which scored the sixth run of the frame, chased Ferran.
“Ferran was doing an excellent job,”Shines said. “You walk a guy, make a miscue defensively and things snowball.”
Ferran’s wildness proved contagious. Delmarva’s six-run sixth inning started with a walk and a single against reliever Stuart Rohling.
Shines called on Arnaldo Munoz to put out the fire, but he promptly walked B.J. Littleton. Nick Garcia followed with a screaming line drive to center that Michael Spidale started in on, then watched fly over his head and roll all the way to the wall.
The Shorebirds took a 9-2 lead on that shot and grabbed three more runs before the side was retired.
Delmarva’s staff didn’t need all the help. Farren surrendered two runs — one earned — to the Intimidators (4-1) in the first inning. Spidale reached on an error, Guillermo Reyes shot a single up the middle and John Lackaff was safe without a throw on a tapper between third and the mound to load the bases.
Kannapolis, which averaged seven runs in its four-game sweep of Lakewood, looked ready to roll again, but Farren induced three ground-ball outs. Two of them scored runs, but Farren was untouchable until he left in the sixth.
“I’ve got to tip my hat to that guy,”Shines said of Farren. “We had a chance to blow this one open and he help his composure. That’s pretty special for a young kid.”
With all the drama sapped from the contest, Delmarva tacked on three runs in the seventh inning on Rick Elder’s bomb to right-center. Kannapolis answered with two sacrifice flies in the bottom half to close out the scoring.
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