Jacksonville 16, Carolina 6

Zebulon, NC --- Chin Lung Hu drove in a career-high six runs in his final game before the Futures Game as Jacksonville drubbed the Carolina Mudcats 16-6 at Five County Stadium on Friday night.  

Hu homered with two aboard in the fourth inning, then doubled in three in the fifth as the Suns (14-5) opened up a 11-0 lead.  Hu will miss Saturday's finale along with manager John Shoemaker as they head to the XM Satellite Radio Futures Game in San Francisco.  Shoemaker, who became Jacksonville's all-time winningest Southern League manager with Friday's win with victory #303, will be a coach for the World Team at the Futures Game on Sunday.  

James Russ (L, 1-3) struggled from the outset.  The first four Suns batters reached in the first inning with Alberto Concepcion singling home James Tomlin from third to open the scoring.  Russ escaped further damage in the inning when Anthony Raglani drove a grounder to first baseman Grant Psomas who converted the smash into a first-to-home double play.   

After a six-run Jacksonville fifth inning, Carolina (8-11) countered with six in the last of the seventh to pull back into the game.  Reliever Luis Gonzalez walked four of the five batters he faced after replacing Zach Hammes following his six scoreless innings.  Gonzalez was yanked for Ramon Troncoso, who surrendered consecutive doubles to Eric Riggs and Chase Lambin for three runs, then a rocket single to center to score another.  

The Suns put the game away with four in the eighth against all-star Scott Nestor.  Infielder Rex Rundgren pitched the ninth inning allowing a run, his second-ever pitching performance.  

Jesus Delgado (5-5, 5.24) starts the series finale on Saturday night at 6:15 PM ET against Jacksonville's Mike Megrew (5-5, 5.80).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E Jacksonville 1 0 1 3 6 0 0 4 1 16 17 0 Carolina 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 6 6 0