Taking advantage of solid pitching, a key defensive play and some timely hitting, the Savannah Sand Gnats slipped past the Rome Braves 3-0 on Friday night at Grayson Stadium.
Matt Koch went 7 1/3 innings before leaving with a runner on second in the eighth inning of a scoreless deadlock.
Rome’s Ross Heffley appeared to break up the tie with a single to center field, but Gnats all-star Brandon Nimmo made a perfect throw to the plate to gun down the go-ahead run.
And in the bottom of the inning, Chad Zurcher slapped a single to right to score Eudy Pina with the first of three Savannah runs against Braves reliever Robert Fish.
“It was a perfect game of pitching, defense and hitting,” said Gnats manager Luis Rojas after his squad won its third game in a row after starting the second half of the season 1-4.
Savannah (47-30) won the Southern Division of the South Atlantic League in the first half of the season, but had several players called up, leaving Rojas to rebuild.
Not that he sees it that way.
“The guys we have on this team make it easy,” Rojas said. “We had a team effort out there and it’s been that way the past couple of nights.”
Rome starter Mauricio Cabrera didn’t make it easy on the Gnats. The 19-year-old right-hander with a fastball that reached 99 mph retired 19 of the last 20 Savannah batters he faced before exiting after the seventh with the game scoreless.
Cabrera, only 1-4 with a 4.30 earned run average, is ranked the Atlanta Braves’ seventh best prospect by MLB.com.
“(Atlanta Braves) fans should be excited, he has good stuff and he put it together tonight,” Rome manager Randy Ingle said. “His velocity has been the same, consistently 97, but his breaking stuff got better as the game went along. He looked good from the first pitch to the last pitch.”
The same could be said of Koch, who went another game without a walk and now has thrown 64 2/3 innings allowing just two walks all season.
Rome did not get a runner past second against Koch, a fastball pitcher who mixed a few more breaking balls into his repertoire.
“I needed something to get them off the fastball,” said Koch, who throws in the mid 90s. “I felt good about this game. It’s about time I got a shutout (through seven innings).”
Reliever Paul Sewald got the final five outs to pick up his first win of the season.
Pitching kept the Gnats in the game until the eighth. Jeff Reynolds led off with a single and Pina came in to pinch run.
Albert Cordero bunted Pina to second and Phillip Evans lined a single off the glove of first baseman Edison Sanchez to put runners on the corners with one out.
That brought up Zurcher, who has hit .333 in his last 10 games while raising his batting average to .282.
“(Zurcher) has been getting (quality) at bats and he came through,” Rojas said.
Savannah added another run on an infield out and the third run on a wild pitch.
Rome ab r h bi Savannah ab r h bi
Wren cf 4 0 2 0 Zurcher 2b 4 1 1 1
Peraza ss 4 0 0 0 Nimmo cf 4 0 0 1
Edmnsn lf 4 0 0 0 Johnson rf 3 0 1 0
Sanchez 3 0 0 0 Sabol lf 2 0 1 0
Anslmnt dh 3 0 0 0 Frenzel 1b 4 0 0 0
Franco 3b 3 0 1 0 Zapata dh 3 0 0 0
Tewell c 2 0 0 0 Reynolds 3b 3 0 1 0
Meneses rf 3 0 0 0 Pina pr 0 1 0 0
Heffley 2b 3 0 2 0 DLCruz 3b 0 0 0 0
Cordero c 2 0 0 0
Evans ss 3 1 1 0
Totals 29 0 5 0 Totals 28 3 5 2
Rome 000 000 000 --0
Savannah 000 000 03x --3
DP—Savannah 1. LOB—Rome 3, Savannah 5. 2B—Heffley. SAC—Tewell, Cordero. SB—Sabol.
ROME IP H R ER BB SO
Cabrera 7 2 0 0 1 8
Fish L,0-2 1 3 3 3 2 1
SAVANNAH IP H R ER BB SO
Koch 7 1/3 4 0 0 0 5
Sewald W,1-1 1 2/3 1 0 0 0 2
WP—Fish 2. T—2:14. A—2,224.