The Hawaii Tropics return home to play a four-games series against the Nashville Bluebirds.
Game 1- The Hawaii Tropics defense assisted the Nashville offense with three fielding errors as the Bluebirds roll. Trops starter Semih Gurani allowed two earned runs, one unearned, on two hits in three innings. He took the loss to fall to 2-2 with a 4.74 ERA. John Moore committed an error of his own that led to two unearned runs of the three runs he gave up. He gave up two hits, walked three and struck out one in an innings of work.
DH Tomas Borges is the Hawaii offense. Borges was 3 for 4 with two homers. He hit a solo homer in the 1st inning and another solo homer in the 5th inning. Borges scored two runs and drove in three. 3B Will Patterson was 1 for 4 with a double and scored a run. CF Angelo Lucchesi was also 1 for 4 and scored a run.
Nashville wins 9-4.
Game 2- Hawaii’s defense is just giving runs away as the Bluebirds fly away with another win. Borges fumbled a ball at first for an error, Thomas Kramer bobbled one a short and rookie 3B Felipe Hernandez kicked one. These errors ruined a start by Manny Ortiz. Ortiz pitched 5.2 innings allowing no earned runs but three unearned crossed the plate. He gave up four hits while walking two and fanning five. He was tagged with the loss to fall to 0-2 with a 4.35 ERA.
Borges was 1 for 4 with a solo blast in the 4th inning for Hawaii’s only run.
Nashville wins 9-1.
Game 3- Another error and another loss. This time that error didn’t lead to a run, but Hawaii’s offense did nothing. Neither did Nashville’s as Hawiai starter Utbah ‘Crawdad Me’ bin Muta had his best start as a Tropic. He allowed a run on three hits, walked two and fanned five batters. He falls to 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA. Reliever Chih Kuang kept the Trops close with three hitless innings with four Ks.
Adhyapayana Mehta, Shafiq Zahir, and Carlos Sanchez each had a hit for Hawaii.
Nashville wins 1-0.
Game 4- The Tropics offense gets off the schneid but former Tropics Farmhand Roger Kidd outscored his former team with 7 RBI.
After looking better for a couple of starts, Gerardo Rea took two steps back. He gave up five runs on five hits, two of those hits were homers. He walked one and struck out three.
Mehta was 3 for 5 and scored two runs. Borges was 3 for 5 with a double, an RBI and scored a run. 3B Mitch Wareham was 1 for 5 with two ribbies. Carlos Sanchez was 2 for 4 with a solo homer and two RBI.
Oh, and there was another error.
Nashville wins 8-6.
The Bluebirds sweep the four-game series.
GM Jim Walker fumed, “We never should’ve traded Kidd, but we needed a lefty bat at the time. He was bumping but we lost patience in our offense. We only got one year’s benefit out of it. F@#$!
