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KANNAPOLIS — The most amazing thing about the Kannapolis Intimidators’ shining season is that they’re still in a heated pennant race.
Kannapolis, an impressive 41-18 in the South Atlantic League even after a coyote-ugly 9-4 Thursday night loss to Greensboro, never has been able to put away the second-place Lexington Legends, who have dogged their backtrail all season.
Even when Kannapolis won 21 of 25 games in a blistering stretch that lasted from late April to late May, it couldn’t shake the Legends. And now, with Kannapolis finally hitting a long overdue mini-slump — it’s split its last 14 games — the Legends (41-19) are really putting the heat on. They crushed Lakewood 10-2 last night to close within one half-game of the Intimidators, who have ruled the Northern Division leaderboard pretty much from Opening Day.
Not a thing went right for the Intimidators in a “Thirsty Thursday” hitfest that required three hours, 19 minutes to play.
The bad stuff started with Kannapolis starting pitcher Dennis Ulacia, who arrived at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium with a gaudy 6-0 record. But the lefty left the action after just three innings with a severely bruised ERA. It climbed from 2.11 to 2.62 in roughly an hour.
After Ulacia, Kannapolis manager Razor Shines changed pitchers more often than Madonna changes boyfriends. Six Intimidator hurlers got a chance. All yielded hits, as the Bats (30-28) racked up 14 knocks, including four triples.
The longest of the Bats’ 14 hits came off the bat of catcher Shane Cronin, who powered a 415-foot, two-run homer to dead center in the third inning.
But the most important Bats’ hit came in the fifth. Kannapolis had closed to within 5-4 heading to the fifth, but with the bases loaded and two outs, Bernabel Castro ripped a sea-level liner toward center field off reliever Daniel Ross Mozingo.
Kannapolis center fielder Mike Spidale made a dive at the drive, but came up empty and the ball skittered all the way to the wall for a game-breaking, three-run triple. It was Castro’s second three-bagger of the game. He entered the contest with two triples in his previous 46 games.
At the dish, it was a forgettable and frustrating evening for Kannapolis, which smacked out 12 hits, but fanned nine times, stranded 10 runners and rapped into two rally-shredding double plays.
The third inning, when Kannapolis loaded the bases with no outs but settled for one run, was huge.
So was the fourth, when Casey Rogowski, Kannapolis’ most consistent stick and the No. 2 hitter in the SAL, grounded into a double play to snuff out a potential big inning. And so was the sixth, when Rogowski bounced to short to strand two more.
Kannapolis tried to give what remained of a weary crowd of 1,706 a reason to get rowdy in the ninth, but after solid hits by John Lackaff and Rogowski, Darren Ciraco and Derek Wigginton went down swinging on 3-2 pitches to end the ballgame.
Good news for Kannapolis? Rocky Hughes tossed three scoreless innings; Guillermo Reyes swiped his 26th base; and Humberto Quintero went 3-for-3 and scored twice.
The bad news is that after a season full of winning, if they can’t beat Greensboro tonight, the Intimidators will most likely wake up Saturday morning in a not-so-intimidating second place.
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NOTES:Kannapolis is 23-8 at home. ... Quintero, a catcher who’s bat was a question mark early on, has hit safely in 12 of his last 14 games. ... Kannapolis will end the first half at Lexington, with what should be an exciting three-game series (June 15-17). ... Jim Sweeney (6-2) will pitch tonight for the Intimidators. Scooby Doo will be among the fans.
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Contact Mike London at 704-797-4259 or mlondon@salisburypost.com
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