Kingsport 3, Greeneville 2

One swing of the bat by Jeff Diehl ended the Kingsport Mets’ Tuesday night in fantastic fashion. Diehl led off the bottom of the ninth with a solo home run to left field, and lifted the K-Mets to a 3-2 victory in the finale of their Appalachian League series with the Greeneville Astros.

Kingsport (8-11) is one of the hottest teams in the West Division, having won five of its past seven games to climb out of the cellar and pull within 4 ½ games of division-leading Elizabethton.

Greeneville (10-9) never led on Tuesday, but this game remained close from wire to wire.

Greeneville tied it in the eighth in a two-out rally, stringing together three straight base hits. The third, by Angel Ibanez, came off freshly entered reliever Ricardo Jacquez, and scored Darwin Rivera from second with the tying run.

That 2-2 deadlock continued through the ninth, with Jacquez posting back-to-back strikeouts to set down the Astros and strand a man on second base. Diehl then went yard off Greeneville reliever Gonzalo Sanudo, crushing the 2-2 offering to left in a towering shot.

Kingsport won despite getting out-hit by a 7-5 margin. Bernal led the K-Mets with two knocks, one th RBI single. Chase McDonald led Greeneville with two hits.

Kingsport got some significant production out of the bottom three in the order. Adrian Abreu, Michael Bernal and Jeff McNeil combined for two runs scored, two hits and two stolen bases. McNeil was very efficient despite not getting a hit, reaching base twice on a walk and a hit-by-pitch and scoring Bernal on a sac fly in the fifth.

Whalen went six innings, and benefited from some fine defensive plays. McNeil turned a fabulous double play to end the top of the first. McNeil laid out to make a rolling grab of Rivera’s grounder up the middle, forced Tanner Mathis and then threw a strike to first base to nab Rivera by a couple of steps. The fantastic defense continued. Kingsport turned a 1-6-3 double play to end the second inning, and Amed Rosario made a nice diving grab of a line drive in the third to rob Ariel Ovando of a hit.

Key Stats

Jeffrey Diehl: 1-for-4, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 R

Michael Bernal: 2-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 R, 1 SB

Robert Whalen: 6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 0 ER, 6 K

Tyler Bashlor: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 1 ER, 3 K

Ricardo Jacquez: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 ER, 2 K

(Team Report)