In the Wilmington Blue Rocks’ first game in Deleware for their home and home series against the Aberdeen IronBirds, the IronBirds dominated in a 9-2 to keep their series lead of 3-1.

Although the first inning remained scoreless for both teams, the IronBird started to build their lead at the top of the second. Left fielder Issac Bellony was the first man to get on base with a ground ball toward Blue Rocks’ first baseman, Leandro Emiliani. After Issac De Leon and Davis Tavarez walked, shortstop Chris Galvin only needed to ground into a force-out, sending Bellony over home plate. Maxwell Costes would do the same, allowing De Leon to score and putting the game 2-0 in Aberdeen’s favor.

The Blue Rocks were able to answer back, however, in the bottom of the second on a double by Wilmington’s third baseman, Cole Daily. This Daily double scored Kevin Strohschein, who had reached on a fielding error early in the inning. The game would appear close at 2-1, but this would be one of the only runs the Blue Rocks tallied over the next seven innings.

At the top of the third inning, Aberdeen took the lead and ran with– racking up a total of five runs throughout six batters. The first of these runs came from an RBI single by right fielder David Tavarez. Tavarez scored Luis Valdez, who had reached on a fielding error by Daily, stole second base, and advanced to third on a throwing error by catcher Onix Vega to find himself in scoring position.

The next four batters of the inning would help to load the bases, and, with only one out, Wilmington replaced starting pitcher Mitchell Parker with relief Gilberto Chu. On Chu’s second pitch of the night, Tavarez hit his fifth home-run of the season for a grand slam that would mark Aberdeen’s lead 7-1.

The IronBirds would take a break for the next two innings, along with the Blue Rocks, but would start back up in the sixth inning after a sacrifice fly from Valdez would score Maxwell Cotes and tally Aberdeen at eight runs total.