NORTH AUGUSTA — The Augusta GreenJackets (22-23) rattled off their second win in a row over the Charleston RiverDogs (28-18) by a score of 4-2 on Friday night.
Charleston jumped ahead of Augusta in the second inning on an RBI single by Nathan Perry to give the RiverDogs a 1-0 lead.
Behind strong starts from Luis Vargas and JJ Goss for the RiverDogs, the score would remain 1-0 into the sixth inning until Charleston bolstered their advantage with a groundout by Junior Caminero to score Shane Sasaki, making it 2-0 RiverDogs.
But the GreenJacket bats got hot in the bottom of the inning with Stephen Paolini igniting a rally with an RBI triple into the right-field corner to score Mahki Backstrom, trimming the deficit to 2-1. One pitch later, Augusta tied the game on a wild pitch as Paolini came home to even the battle at two.
An inning later, the GreenJackets took their first lead as Francisco Floyd scored Justin Janas from third on a double-play ball, it was a tradeoff Augusta would take as it put them in front late.
They’d take advantage of a defensive miscue from the RiverDogs in the eighth as a throwing error allowed Kadon Morton to score from second to up Augusta’s edge to 4-2.
Juan Mateo would enter for the save and he handled his business with a 1-2-3 inning to give the GreenJackets their second consecutive win over the RiverDogs by a score of 4-2.
Rob Griswold (5-4) was the winning pitcher in relief for Augusta with Juan Mateo (4) securing the save. Sean Harney (0-1) was saddled with the loss for Charleston.
Stephen Paolini’s RBI triple and run scored in the sixth helped get things going offensively for the GreenJackets. Justin Janas manufactured his fourth multi-hit game with his leadoff double in the seventh, setting up Augusta to score the go-ahead run in the winning effort.
The GreenJackets will now look to even the series on Saturday night as Rainiery Rodriguez (2-3) toeing the slab for Augusta versus Antonio Jimenez (9-4) for the RiverDogs with first pitch scheduled for 6:05 p.m.
