It’s a Wednesday sweep for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, winning 5-4 in their second game of the day against the Harrisburg Senators, thanks largely to red-hot shortstop Richard Urena.
Unlike their earlier game, the Fisher Cats scattered their five runs over four of the second game’s seven innings. Urena drove in three of those runs and scored another thanks to a line drive single from Harold Ramirez.
Gunnar Heidt provided a home run as well, with Heidt, Ramirez and Urena each going 2-for-3.
Harrisburg wouldn’t leave quietly, as New Hampshire reliever Dusty Issacs could not get the final out of the contest. Instead, he allowed three straight batters to reach base, punctuated by Neftali Soto’s line drive single.
The Senators sent in Stephen Perez to run for Soto and New Hampshire put their faith in Jose Fernandez to close out the contest. Almost immediately, Fernandez gave up a single to Drew Ward, bringing in two runs and putting Perez only 90 feet away from tying the contest.
However, Issac Ballou could not muster more than a meek pop up in foul territory, destroying any hopes of a comeback.
That pop up gave Fernandez his third save of the year and cemented the win for Andrew Case, who is now 3-0 for the Fisher Cats.
Case pitched three innings of scoreless relief following the early departure of starter Josh DeGraaf, allowing just two hits during his outing.
Harrisburg’s John Simms (2-3) got the loss, going 4 1/3 innings. He allowed nine of New Hampshire’s ten hits and all five of their runs, striking out five and walking two.
With the second win, the Fisher Cats are now 5-5 in Wednesday games this season. They’ll seek their second Thursday win in 2017 in the Harrisburg series finale with lefty Shane Dawson (1-5, 6.16 ERA) facing the Senators’ Jaron Long (4-4-2.65 ERA).