CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Fayetteville Woodpeckers (29-35) saw a pair of leads disappear Tuesday night at Joseph P. Riley Jr. Ballpark as the Charleston RiverDogs (26-38) stunned the Woodpeckers, 9-6. Fayetteville brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning but was unable to pull back even late. 

The Woodpeckers ran out to an early 3-0 lead in the top of the first after Ricardo Balogh launched a three-run home run to right center field. It was Balogh’s fourth home run of the year and his third in the month of June. 

In the bottom half, Charleston responded with four of its own against Fayetteville starter Nic Swanson. Cooper Kinney and Ryan Spikes delivered with a pair of RBI singles before Odalys Peguero tied the game on a groundout to first. With two outs, Cristopher Barete ripped one into right to score Spikes and give the RiverDogs a 4-3 lead. 

Both teams were kept off the scoreboard until the top of the fifth when Zach Cole lifted a sacrifice fly to right, tying the game once again. Two batters later, Balogh dropped a bloop single into center field for his fourth RBI to retake the lead for the Woodpeckers. It was the fourth game of four or more runs batted in by a Fayetteville player this season. 

The Woodpeckers took the one-run lead into the bottom of the eighth inning, but Charleston tagged reliever Amilcar Chirinos (L, 0-2) for five runs in the frame. The big blow came with two runs already in on a three-run blast off the bat of Estanli Castillo. 

Fayetteville made some noise in the top of the ninth against lefty Drew Sommers. Frank Perez hit a two-out solo home run the other way for his first Single-A homer to bring his team within three. Cole and Luis Encarnacion followed him with back-to-back singles that brought Balogh up representing the tying run. However, Sommers got him to ground out to short to end the ballgame. 

The two teams will play the second of six games this week on Wednesday night with the first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m.

Left-hander Trey Dombroski gets the ball for the Woodpeckers while the RiverDogs are expected to start right-hander Yoniel Curet. 

Box score: https://www.milb.com/gameday/728257/final/box 

The CityView News Fund is a nonprofit organization that supports CityView’s newsgathering operation. Will you help us with a tax-deductible donation?