Rockers drop second straight to Ferry Hawks

HIGH POINT, N.C. – Staten Island hit four home runs including two from Luis Castro and tripped the High Point Rockers 13-3 on Thursday night in front of a crowd of 2,622 at Truist Point.

The High Point Rockers pitchers struck out the side in the first inning and also in the ninth inning. But in between, the Ferry Hawks put up 13 runs on 14 hits and handed High Point its second consecutive double figure loss coming on the heels of Wednesday’s 14-4 Ferry Hawk win.

High Point starter Neil Ramirez struck out the side in the top of the first but ran into trouble in the second. After a lead-off walk to Chris Brito, Luis Castro blasted a homer to left to give Staten Island a 2-0 lead. After Roldani Baldwin singled, Ramirez hit Bobby Sparling with a pitch to put two aboard. Noah Fisher singled to bring home Baldwin just before Angel Aguilar hit a three-run homer for a 5-0 Staten Island advantage.

Ramirez allowed an RBI single to Sparling in the third as the ‘Hawks built a 7-0 lead. Jeremy Rhoades relieved Ramirez in the fourth and gave up five more runs on five hits, the big shots being a two-run homer from Yoshi Tsutsuo and another two-shot from Castro.

High Point got on the board in the sixth when Ben Aklinski started the inning with a double and scored on a single by Ryan Grotjohn. But High Point left the bases loaded after just the one run.

The Ferry Hawks completed their scoring with a single run in the seventh off Cam Bedrosian when Brito singled home Mike Wilson who had walked to start the inning.

High Point tallied twice more in the eighth when Daikan Yoh was hit by a pitch and Brian Parreira drew a walk from reliever Anthony Quattrocchi. Beau Taylor brought home Yoh with a double and Michael Martinez delivered a sac fly to plate Parreira.

And High Point’s Ryan Dull finished off the game by striking out the side in the ninth.

Parreira was the only Rocker to collect two hits. Staten Island was led by Aguilar who had three hits and three RBI and Castro who drove in four runs with his two homers.

The Rockers are now 57-33 and 16-11 in the second half of the Atlantic League season. They are tied for first in the South Division with Gastonia as they share identical records for both the second half and overall.

The Rockers will start a six-game road trip on Friday with a three-day visit to Charleston, W.Va. Friday’s game will start at 6:35 p.m. from GoMart Park. The game will be live streamed on FLO Baseball and also available on the Mixlr app.