RiverDogs go out at home in style

A crowd of 4,494 turned out at Riley Park Wednesday night to see the Charleston RiverDogs play their final home game of the season.

The home team did not disappoint.

Charleston wiped out a 3-0 deficit with a four-run, two-out rally in the fifth inning en route to a 9-3 South Atlantic League victory over the Savannah Sand Gnats.

"First few innings, we just couldn't get runs across the plate," said Charleston manager Torre Tyson. "Austin Romine stepped up there with a solo homer and it just seemed to spark us and it was just good at-bat after good at-bat from then on."

Romine got things going for Charleston (76-58, 31-33 second half) in the fifth with his solo homer. Jesus Montero followed with a walk and scored on Bradley Suttle's double to left.

Brandon Laird followed with a two-run homer to left, his team-leading 21st homer of the season, to put the RiverDogs ahead 4-3.

Charleston added three more runs in the seventh, highlighted by Justin Snyder's two-run double, and two more in the eighth, highlighted by Suttle's solo homer.

Stephen Artz and Chace Vacek combined to shut out the Sand Gnats over the last 4 1/3 innings.

Wednesday night's crowd brought Charleston's season total to 279,606.

It's the RiverDogs' second-highest total behind the record 284,718 fans who turned out last season.

"It was a pretty good crowd," Tyson said. "Unfortunately, we had to take about four hours to win it."

Actually, the game took 3:36 to complete, and early on, it didn't look good for the home team.

Charleston trailed 3-0 through the first four innings and missed on scoring opportunities early.

The RiverDogs had runners on second and third with one out in the second and failed to get a run across.

Again in the third, the RiverDogs had runners on second and third, this time with two out, and Savannah right fielder Carlos Guzman made a diving catch of a sinking liner off the bat of Suttle to help the Sand Gnats get out of the inning.

Savannah scored two first-inning runs on RBI singles by Jefferies Tatford and Ralph Henriques.

The Sand Gnats added a run in the fifth on Guzman's run-scoring single, but the RiverDogs were lucky it wasn't worse since Savannah loaded the bases with no outs.

The RiverDogs will be on the road for games today and Friday at Rome, Ga., before wrapping up the season with a three-game series at Savannah.