R'Dogs' road streak ends at 9

Tourists 9, RiverDogs 3

Asheville, N.C. — The Asheville Tourists banged out 16 hits in a 9-3 win over the Charleston RiverDogs in the opener of a four-game series at McCormick Field on Wednesday.

With the victory, Asheville (24-10) pulled within a half-game of Charleston (24-9) in the South Atlantic League's Southern Division and snapped the RiverDogs' nine-game road winning streak.

Jeffrey Cunningham's two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth erased a 1-0 Charleston lead, and Kevin Clark made it 3-1 Asheville with an RBI single in the fifth.

Taylor Holiday tied the game with a two-run double in the top of the sixth, but a perfectly executed relay nailed RiverDogs newcomer Braedyn Pruitt at the plate to end the inning.

The Tourists took the lead for good in the bottom half as Michael Mitchell doubled in two runs and Darin Holcomb and Clark added RBI singles to make it 7-3.

Asheville's first seven runs all came on two-out hits.

Clark, Cunningham and Brian Rike each collected three hits for Asheville, which added single runs in the seventh and eighth innings to complete the scoring.

Craig Rodriguez (3-1) got the win with 1 1/3 scoreless innings in relief of Tourists starter Connor Graham; Charleston reliever Jesse Hoover (2-1) allowed four runs in 1 1/3 and was charged with the loss.

Justin Snyder paced the RiverDogs' offense with three hits and two runs scored.

The second game of the series is scheduled for today at 7:05 p.m. Jason Stephens (1-0, 1.93 ERA) will make his first start after nine relief appearances for the RiverDogs while Asheville counters with Bruce Billings (2-2, 6.23) .

Notes

Third baseman Braedyn Pruitt was added to the RiverDogs' roster from Tampa in the Florida State League to replace Brandon Laird, who was placed on the disabled list with a lower-body injury suffered in Tuesday's game at Hickory. Pitchers Adam Olbrychowski and Ryan Zink (both upper-body) were also put on the DL and were replaced by Gabe Medina (transferred from Staten Island in the New York-Penn League) and Casey Erickson (Gulf Coast Rookie League).