The Asheville Tourists saw their three-game winning streak come to an end on Monday night as the Columbia Fireflies escaped with a 3-2 win.
Asheville outhit Columbia 8-3 but 13 strikeouts and two costly errors proved too much to overcome.
The Tourists jumped out to an early 1-0 lead against Jordan Humphreys. Jose Gomez tripled with one out in the top of the first inning and Vince Fernandez drove him in with a groundout to second base.
The Fireflies responded with a two-run, two-out rally in the bottom of the second. Columbia notched three singles in the frame against Riley Pint to take a 2-1 lead. Both runs were unearned. Those were the only hits the Fireflies recorded the entire game.
Columbia added another unearned run in the sixth when Tim Tebow was hit by a pitch, went to third on a throwing error, and scored on a sacrifice fly. Asheville reclaimed that run in the seventh when Manny Melendez singled in Willie Abreu.
Trailing 3-2, the Tourists had several opportunities to tie the game but misfortune kept occurring. Abreu, Fernandez, Melendez, and Gomez all hit into loud outs in the final three innings with the tying run aboard.
Humphreys struck out 12 Tourists in 6.2 innings and picked up his league leading fourth win of the season. Pint pitched three innings and fell to 0-3 despite lowering his ERA on the season to 3.07. Tuesday’s game between Asheville and Columbia will begin at 11:05 am.
(Written by Doug Maurer of the Asheville Tourists.)