Announcement
Freni & Chiefs Take 8th Straight Win
Melrose,
MA- Jared
Freni won his fourth straight start of the year and the Chiefs used four fourth
innings runs to turn back the Americans 4-1 at Morelli Field in Melrose on Thursday night.
For the first place Chiefs, it was their eighth win in eight tries and pushed their record to 8-0 on the season.
From the outset it was apparent that Freni didn’t have his best stuff on this night and the Americans took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third. Dan Cacciola led off the inning with a broken bat single to short right and then stole second. Mac Singleton followed and singled to left to put runners on the corners with no outs. Freni got then got veeran Mike Addesa to hit into a tailor made 6-4-3 doubleplay with Cacciola coming across the plate on the play. Matt Brown followed with the first of his two singles in the game but Freni ended the inning by striking out Kyle Devin.
The Chiefs scored all of their runs off Melrose starter Gianni Esposito despite getting only one hit in the top of the 4th inning. Tony Serino drew a walk and stole second. After Esposito struck out Mike Burgoyne for the first out Billy Mottram tied the game at 1-1 with a single to right-center scoring scoring and moved to second on the throw home. Mike Gedman’s fielder’s choice was then thrown away, putting runners at first and third with one away. Peter Copa was next and he hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Mottram, giving the Chiefs the lead at 2-1. Mike Andre and Nate Witkowski both drew walks to load the bases. Danny DiMare came on to pinch run and both he and Gedman scored when shortstop Vinny Scifo kicked Mike Barbati’s grounder to bump the lead to 4-1. Brian Carney made a nice sliding grab of Nick Leva’s fly ball to right to save two more runs and end the inning.
Freni held the Americans scoreless over the final three frames to secure the win. The Chiefs’ right-hander allowed six hits, struck out 11, and walked a season high five batters.
Esposito (1-1) and reliever Mike Peters combined to hold the Chiefs to just four hits, two to second baseman Mike Barbati.
