Friday's Central Georgia Daily News 'n Notes: McCann, walk-off, the Braves Report (plenty more); Macon hosting major junior tennis tourney; Bacon/CPL words
Friday’s Central Georgia - and of interest to Central Georgia - news and notes, compiled from staff reports, email reports, the web, and social media.
Macon welcomes youth tennis players from 30-plus states
Water, dry towels, and sun block will be as key as anything as nearly 250 youth tennis players converge on Macon this weekend for the USTA National Level 3 tennis tournament, for girls and boys 16 and 18.
Matches will be at John Drew Smith Tennis Center, Mercer, and Tattnall Square Park, starting Saturday morning.
Three Stratford boys players are in action.
Senior Samuel Barrow is seeded ninth in boys 18 singles. He and Sai Baylor of Nashville, Tenn. are the top seed in boys 18 doubles and have a first-round bye.
Stratford junior Thomas Brewer and Cy McLeod of Augusta are the third seed in boys 16 doubles, and got a first-round bye.
Senior Daniel Cohen and Niklas VonHellens of Thomasville make up a boys 18 doubles team.
Braves Report
Good things are worth waiting for, and weather made the Braves and Marlins wait. Fine.
The game was stopped after seven, scoreless, and everybody sat for nearly 2-1/2 hours.
Then Luke Jackson sat down Miami in order in the top of the ninth after a leadoff double, needing 11 pitches to squelch the threat.
Freddie Freeman opened the bottom half with a double to left, followed by an intentional walk, runner-advancing groundout, another intentional walk, and then a first-pitch single to left by Brian McCann for the game-winner.
Julio Teheran threw 103 pitches in six innings, with two walks and five hits against six strikeouts. He was followed by Touki Toussaint and A.J. Minter for an inning before Jackson improved to 4-2 with two strikeouts.
Miami pitcher Jordan Yamamoto went six with two hits, three walks, and seven strikeouts, the 23-year-old adding a base hit as the Marlins outhit the Braves 1-0.
Saturday, vs. Miami, 4:10 p.m., FSSO; Sunday, vs. Miami, 1:20 p.m., FSSO; Tuesday, All-Star game, 7:30 p.m., FOX; Friday, at San Diego, 10:10 p.m., MLB/FSSO
Interesting power surge Thursday
There’s some offense on this team
Part I: A sitdown with Alex Anthopoulos
And it was Walter Banks Bobblehead Night
Around/About Central Georgia
Lexington County tops Macon
The Blowfish led from the start, with a run in the first, and held on to nip Macon 5-4 in Coastal Plain action.
The visitors scored three in the sixth to pull within 5-3, thanks to Calvin Estrada’s three-run homer to left. Macon added a run in the eighth, but went down in order in the ninth.
Daniel Harris and Cory Bivins (GMC) had two hits each for Macon, which stranded only two while going through four pitchers.
Macon hosts Savannah on Saturday for Military Appreciation Night, and then is off until Wednesday at Florence followed by a home game a night later against Florence.
No Macon players in Coastal HR derby
Players from six teams will participate in the Coastal Plain home run derby, but nobody from Macon is on the list.
All-star action begins at 6 p.m. on Sunday.
The all-star format, as per the league’s release (all sic):
“There will be six total teams in this tournament style format with one team representing each of our divisions, and a fan vote team being comprised of all CPL players. The sixth team will be made up of six Savannah Banana players as the host team and six people from the community of Savannah.
“… One participant from each team will take part in a modified home run derby that will determine seeding for the tournament. From there the #1 and #2 seeded teams automatically advance to Monday's semi-final matchup and the #3-#6 seeds face off in two back-to-back three inning games. The winner of each matchup will move on to face the #1 and #2 seeds in the semi-finals on Monday starting at 6 p.m. ET, with the winners of those matchups ultimately facing each other there after in Monday's Championship game to follow. All games will be three innings in length.
“The modified derby gives each participant two minutes to hit from four places on the field: just behind second base on the grass where they will toss it to themself (sic), at second base where they will hit off a tee, just in front of the pitcher's mound where they receive a soft toss from a coach and finally at home plate where they will hit off a coach throwing from the mound. They must hit a home run at each station before they can move on to the next.
“Participants can then stay at home plate and hit as many home runs there as they can until their time runs out. The player with the most home runs earns the number one seed for his team and so on and so forth down the line to complete the seeding.”
Around/About Georgia