REED DOMINATES LONG ISLAND

Nate Reed is back to his 2018 Pitcher of the Year form.  That means opponents are having a hard time scoring.

Reed (2-2) carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning on Saturday night, leaving as soon as Deibinson Romero broke the spell with a two-out, two-strike single, pitching the host Lancaster Barnstormers to a 4-0 win over the Long Island Ducks at Clipper Magazine Stadium.

The left-hander had to deal with only two baserunners over his first six innings of work.  He walked L.J. Mazzilli with two outs in the first inning.  Mazzilli again reached in the fourth as third baseman Zach Shank bobbled his grounder for an error.

Over his 6 2/3-inning, 84-pitch night, Reed struck out seven.  He retired 12 batters on ground balls.  Until Romero’s single, no Long Island batter was able to reach the outfielders with a fair ball.

His teammates staked him to a 2-0 lead off Joe Iorio (5-2) in the bottom of the second.  Destin Hood cranked a double to the left field wall and took third on K.C. Hobson’s ground out.  Gift Ngoepe followed with a two-run homer onto the right field deck, his first long ball in the Atlantic League.

With two outs in the third, Joe Terdoslavich muscled a single into center.  He came all the way around to score when Hood drilled a double into the left field corner.

Lancaster scored its final run in the fourth inning.  Anderson De La Rosa smacked a one-out single up the middle and moved ahead on a walk to Shank.  Darian Sandford stroked a grounder to Mazzilli at second.  The Ducks turned the force play on Shank, but Vladimir Frias made a hasty throw in an attempt to double up Sandford and bounced the ball into the dugout, allowing De La Rosa to score.

Long Island was given an opportunity to score in the eighth.  Matt Marksberry walked Joe Apostolo to start the inning before retiring the next two batters.  With D’Arby Myers batting, a Logan Sawyer pitch eluded De La Rosa, and Myers was able to race to first.  Sawyer walked Cade Gotta on a 3-2 pitch to load the bases before Mazzilli grounded to third to end the threat.

Another uprising began to build in the ninth when Lew Ford led off with a double, and Hector Sanchez picked up a one-out walk.  Sawyer ended the game, getting Apostolo to ground into a 5-3 double play.

The Barnstormers and Ducks play the finale of the three-game series on Sunday afternoon.  Jared Lakind (5-4) will make the start for Lancaster against right-hander Brandon Beachy (0-0).  Fans may tune into Blue Ridge 11 or the Barnstormers YouTube Channel, starting at 1:00.

NOTES:  Reed has not allowed a run in 13 innings over his last two starts…His win was his 31^st as a Barnstormer, tying him for second on the club’s all-time list with current manager Ross Peeples…He needs one more to tie Dwayne Pollok for the all-time lead…Caleb Gindl singled in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to nine games, his longest of the season…The two hits was the lowest total by the opposing team this season.