McCoy Homers Twice, Hot Rods Take Down Drive 10-4

Greenville, South Carolina – Ryan McCoy belted two of the five Bowling Green Hot Rods (24-11) home runs, powering the team past the Greenville Drive (14-21) on Wednesday at Fluor Field in Greenville, South Carolina.

The Hot Rods started the scoring in the top of the second against Drive starter Austin Ehrlicher. With one out, Marshall Toole reached on a hit by pitch and stole second. Tom Poole singled to right, scoring Toole, giving the Hot Rods a 1-0 lead.

Bowling Green added to the lead in the top of the third against Ehrlicher. Theo Gillen clubbed a solo homer to right to lead off the inning, improving the Bowling Green lead to 2-0.

Four more runs came around to score for the Hot Rods against Drive reliever Brandon Neely in the top of the fourth. McCoy led off with a walk and advanced to second on a Jose Perez groundout. Gillen drove him home with a single, making it 3-0. One out later, Emilien Pitre walked, and Connor Hujsak blasted a three-run homer, creating a 6-0 Hot Rods lead.

Greenville plated a run in the bottom of the fourth inning against Bowling Green starter Jose Urbina. Jack Winnay reached on a one-out walk and scored on a Freili Encarnacion double, bringing the score to 6-1.

In the top of the fifth, McCoy made it 7-1 with a solo shot against Neely.

The Drive struck again in the bottom of the sixth against Urbina. Winnay led off the inning with a solo homer. Mason White tripled and scored on a Natanael Yuten single, making it 7-3.

McCoy blasted his second solo homer of the night in the top of the seventh, taking Danny Kirwin deep for an 8-3 Hot Rods lead. Bowling Green added two more runs in the top of the ninth on a two-run homer from Tom Poole, making it 10-3 Hot Rods.

Greenville brought in one run in the bottom of the ninth against Bowling Green reliever Ryan Andrade, but that is as far as their comeback attempt would get, ending the night in a 10-4 win for Bowling Green.

Urbina (2-3) received the win, tossing 5.2 innings, allowing three runs on six hits while walking two and striking out four. Ehrlicher (0-2) was given the loss, surrendering two runs on four hits, walking one and striking out two over 2.1 innings.

The Hot Rods and Drive play the third game of a six-game series on Thursday with a 5:45 PM CT first pitch at Fluor Field. Bowling Green will start RHP Anderson Brito (2-2, 4.24) against Greenville LHP Dylan Brown (0-1, 6.75).