PEARL, Miss. – The Jacksonville Suns (2-1, 32-41) defeated the Mississippi Braves (1-2, 35-37) by a 6-5 score in the third game of the five-game series at Trustmark Park on Saturday night.
Suns starter Asher Wojciechowski (1-0) earned the win with six innings where he allowed two runs on seven hits with no walks and four strikeouts. Braves starter Rob Whalen (5-5) took the loss, allowing five runs (four earned) on eight hits with a walk and six strikeouts. Jacksonville reliever Ryan Chaffee earned his second save of the year by pitching the final two innings in scoreless fashion.
The clubs traded single runs in the third inning, before two-out RBI hits by Austin Dean, J.T. Riddle, and Chris Curley fueled the Suns to a 3-run top of the fifth to take a 4-1 lead. Cam Maron added an RBI single in the sixth to put the lead at 5-1 before Mississippi’s David Peterson made it a three-run game with an RBI double in the bottom of the sixth to cut Jacksonville’s lead to 5-2.
Against the Braves bullpen in the seventh, Ronnie Mitchell brought in Jacksonville’s last run with a two-out RBI single to put the score at 6-2. The Braves scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh against Suns reliever Scott Lyman, with Dansby Swanson and Peterson collecting back-to-back RBI doubles to cut the lead to 6-5, which would be the final.
Chaffee turned in a perfect eighth inning, but the Braves had the trying run at third and the winning run at first when Chaffee retired Peterson on a groundout to end the game in the ninth.
Suns outfielder Yefri Perez went 0-for-5, ending his hitting streak at 10 games.
