BY BRET STRELOW
SALISBURY POST

KANNAPOLIS — The Kannapolis Intimidators have one final chance to exercise control over their playoff destiny.

Hagerstown pitcher Jeff Clark had enough control on the mound Thursday to put even more pressure on the Intimidators heading into this weekend.

Clark allowed one run and struck out seven batters in six innings to lead the Suns to a 7-2 win at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium.

Clark (13-9) retired 15 of the first 17 batters he faced. He struck out six batters in the first five innings and threw 43 of his 61 pitches for strikes during that span.

“They’re good hitters,”Clark said. “If you make mistakes, they’re going to capitalize and hit the ball hard.

“Luckily, I hit my spots pretty well and minimized the mistakes. If you don’t hit your spots, it shows.”

Clark didn’t walk a batter, and he threw less than two balls to 13 of the 22 batters he faced.

His victory put Hagerstown (38-21 in the second half, 76-53 overall) 1.5 games ahead of Kannapolis in terms of overall record. Tim Bittner (0-2) took the loss for the Intimidators (27-32, 74-54).

For Kannapolis to make the playoffs, Lexington must win the second half in the Northern Division and the Intimidators need to have a better overall record than the Suns.

Hagerstown moved four games ahead of Lexington in the standings with a week and a half left in the regular season. The Legends lost to Greensboro 4-1 on Thursday.

The Intimidators missed an opportunity to help themselves and Lexington, but manager Razor Shines said he is not going to dwell on the defeat.

“If we do that, we’ll find ourselves in a little hole,”Shines said. “We don’t want to dig out of a hole, we want to try to go out (today) and start fresh.”

The Suns got the four-game series off on the right foot with a 3-run second inning. Hagerstown scored its first run when Kannapolis catcher Wally Rosa tried to pick off Adam Shabala at third base.

Rosa’s throw went down the left-field line, and Shabala scored easily. Two batters later, the Suns’ Jason Ellison hit a 2-run single to right field with two outs.

Hagerstown did more damage with two outs in the fifth inning. Dan Trumble hit an RBI single to left field, and he scored on a Shabala double to put the Suns ahead 5-0.

“We started out slow,” said Kannapolis shortstop Stevie Daniel, who went 2-for-4 and had one run and one RBI.

“When you start out slow, you tend to put pressure on yourself later in the ballgame. I think that’s what we did instead of relaxing at the first.”

Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com .