Drive edges R'Dogs on wild pitch in 11th

Drive 3, RiverDogs 2 (11 inn.)

Yamaico Navarro was 3-for-5 and scored on a wild pitch in the 11th inning to send the Greenville Drive to a 3-2 victory over the Charleston RiverDogs in front of a Riley Park crowd of 3,124 on Tuesday.

After surrendering four runs in the first three innings, both pitching staffs settled down to throw seven scoreless innings.

Greenville (21-18) was getting runners on base, but nobody was able to get past second until the 11th inning. Charleston (26-12) looked as if it was going to pepper Drive starting pitcher Eammon Portice. The RiverDogs scored two runs on three hits, a walk and four fielder's choice plays. However, after Justin Snyder led off the third with a single, the hits stopped coming.

The RiverDogs struck out 16 times and went 21 straight batters without getting anyone on base while trying to solve Portice and relievers Daniel Bard and Chad Povich.

"(Portice) got his forkball going on and it was pretty nasty," Charleston manager Torre Tyson said. "Bard was unbeatable tonight. He was locating the ball at 99 mph and dropping in 78-mph breaking balls."

The Drive broke through in the 11th against reliever Chace Vacek. Navarro and Mike Jones hit back-to-back singles to rightfield with one out. vacek got Luis Exposito to hit a grounder for a possible double play. The RiverDogs were able to get the out at second, but Exposito was called safe at first despite the animated objection of RiverDogs manager Torre Tyson.

With Navarro at third, Vacek bounced a pitch in front of the plate and it got away from catcher Jesus Montero to allow Navarro to score without a slide.

In the bottom of the inning, Montero hit a one-out single to left field, but David Mailman tracked down a Brian Baisley fly ball in the left field corner for the second out and Taylor Holiday struck out to end the game.

"Their left fielder beat us," Tyson said. "He holds Montero to a single and I don't know how he got Baisley's ball. That's a tie game if he doesn't catch that.

Povich (5-0) pitched the final three innings for Greenville to earn the win. He allowed two hits and struck out four. Portice struck out nine in six innings and gave up four hits and a walk.

Coming up

The Drive and RiverDogs play the third game of their series today at 7:05 p.m.

Today's promotion is a salute to the New York Yankees' facial hair policy. Anyone with facial hair longer than one inch will receive a dollar off of admission. Also, there will be an abundance of ZZ Top music played and a pair of fans will win tickets to their upcoming concert.

Reach Bill Henley at 937-5595 or bhenley@postandcourier.com.

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