August 27, 2004

Greenville, SC - Chip Ambres homered for the second straight game to lead Carolina to a 6-2 win over Greenville on Friday night at Municipal Stadium.

Ambres (HR, 18, 3-3, 2r, 2b, 2rbi, w, sb, cs), who has batted clean-up for the injured Jason Stokes the last two games, has not been retired in the series going 4-4 with five walks. Ambres socked a 3-2 pitch from Ray Aguilar (L, 1-3) to tie the game at 1 in the second inning. Jeff Inglin (HR, 6, 3-5, 2r, 2rbi) hit a tie-breaking homer in the fifth for a 3-1 Carolina lead.

Jeff Fulchino (W, 6-5, 6ip, 3h, 2r, 2er, 4w, 3k) won his third straight decision, pitching six innings for the victory. After beginning the first two innings struggling to command the strike zone, Fulchino allowed just one hit over his final four innings.

Pat Flury (ND, 2ip, 0h, 0r, 3w, 1k) worked a perfect seventh with a 6-2 lead before walking three hitters in the eighth to invite the tying run to home. Flury popped Jeff Franceour out to short center to end the inning. Jason Pearson (ND, 1ip, 1h, 0r, 0w, 1k) finished the game with a scoreless inning.

Greenville took a 1-0 lead in the first on a run-scoring single by Andy Marte. In the Braves second, Brayan Pena was thrown out at the plate by shortstop Rex Rundgren (1-4) after a Tony Pena double to left-center.

Carolina scored three in the seventh to open up a 6-2 lead against former Mudcats reliever Jamie Emiliano. After an Inglin single, Emiliano threw away a sacrifice bunt by Josh Willingham (0-3, r, s), putting runners at first and third. Ambres followed with a double to score Inglin, while Willingham rounded third base aggressively, then stopped. Pena threw behind Willingham at third base as Willingham broke for home and beat Marte's throw from third base with a left-handed leading slide.

Peter Bauer (5-10, 4.49) starts the third game of the series Saturday night against Kyle Davies (4-0. 2.57). Carolina has won three straight games, and is .500 - 30-30 - for the first time in the second half.

Carolina 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 3 0 --- 6 10 0 5
Greenville 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 --- 2 4 2 7

WP - Fulchino (6-5)
LP - Aguilar (1-3)
S - None.

HR - Ambres (18), Inglin (6)

Att: 2,449
Time: 2:38