Early offense backed a stellar pitching performance, as the Bowie Baysox took down the Harrisburg Senators in Tuesday’s series opener, by a 3-0 final.
Right-hander Connor Gillispie immediately set the tone for the Baysox with an efficient top of the first, working around a one-out walk. In the bottom half, Bowie snatched a quick 1-0 lead against Harrisburg left-hander Alemao Hernandez on a Jud Fabian solo home run. Fabian’s fifth long ball in his 20th Double-A contest traveled an estimated 419 feet off the bat to open the scoring.
Gillispie (W, 4-3) continued to mow down hitters. Allowing just three base runners while matching a season high with six innings, one-hit, shutout innings. After his effort on Tuesday night, right-hander has compiled 11 shutout innings across his last two starts.
The Baysox padded their lead against Hernandez in the bottom of the fifth. A leadoff infield single from Billy Cook extended his hitting streak to six games, before Jackson Holliday tallied his third multi-hit contest in just his fourth game at the Double-A level with a double off the wall that nearly snuck out of the yard to right-center. Holliday’s second two-bagger advanced Cook to third, before Fabian was hit by a pitch to load the bases with nobody out. Back-to-back sacrifice flies from Shayne Fontana and Greg Cullen bolstered the Bowie edge to 3-0. Hernandez (L, 2-5) finished the fifth frame, allowing all three runs as earned on six hits with six strikeouts on the night.
From there, the Baysox bullpen remained in charge, with two shutout innings from right-hander Nolan Hoffman, before Nick Richmond (S, 1) was able to shut the door in the ninth.
The win is the third-consecutive and the sixth in the last seven games for Bowie, who improves to 39-46 on the season. Tuesday night was also the seventh shutout win of the season for the Baysox. Bowie looks to continue its six-game series with Harrisburg on Wednesday, with first pitch scheduled for 6:35 p.m. ET from Prince George’s Stadium.
