Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 11, 1993 TAG: 9308110157
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A three-run advantage? After three innings? Safe?
What a laugh.
The Lynchburg Red Sox did a lot of laughing Tuesday night as they scored 12 consecutive runs and machine-gunned 18 hits to cream the Salem Buccaneers 12-5 before 5,204 flabbergasted witnesses.
"We hadn't hit the ball well in a long time," Red Sox manager Mark Meleski said. "Tonight we exploded."
Most of the debris landed on a Bucs pitching staff that issued seven walks, two wild pitches and one that plunked Lynchburg batter Bob Juday. As for the rest of the stuff the Bucs threw, most of that got hit.
If nothing else, that proves that batting practice is vastly overrated.
"They just got here at 6 p.m. tonight," Salem pitching coach Dave Rajsich said. "They just got off the bus, relaxed and hit everything on the nose."
Salem roared to an auspicious start against Lynchburg starter Joe Hudson. The Bucs slammed out four hits, one of which Mike Brown almost put into orbit over the right-field fence. It fell a little short. However, it did breeze across the street and over the roof of a house.
Hit that one pretty hard, huh, Mike?
"I tried to," he said.
Joe Ronca launched another in the sixth, a solo shot that was his ninth homer of the year. But by that time, the Bucs already were eyeballing a three-run deficit.
Lynchburg started pounding Bucs starter Eric Parkinson in the third with three runs, and the Red Sox added three in the fourth. Walt McKeel, having a luxurious night as a designated hitter instead of his usual job as a catcher, drove in four of the runs with a home run and a single. He doubled to drive in two more in the sixth.
Life is sweet when you don't have to don the tools of ignorance.
"Sometimes you come in after a long inning and don't have any time to rest before you have to hit," he said.
For Bucs pitching, there was no rest.
"You know where to pitch it, but when we did that, they were hitting everything in sight," Rajsich said.
\ BUCSHOTS: Lynchburg snapped a 15-game road losing streak. . . . Kevin Polcovich of the Bucs went 4-for-5 and is on a 6-for-7 tear. . . . J.J. Johnson of the L-Sox, in his third game after arriving from Utica of the New York-Penn League, had five hits and is batting .571. \
see microfilm for box score
Keywords:
BASEBALL
by CNB