Smith, PawSox march to 7-1 win

(WPRI) - Greg Smith pitched for the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees six days ago, but Friday night he was on the hill for the Pawtucket Red Sox and shut down the Columbus Clippers over seven innings en route to a 7-1 PawSox victory.

Smith needed only 84 pitches in his outing to finish-off the Clippers. The lefty struck out four and surrendered just six hits while allowing a single run in the seventh inning. Smith’s triple-A record stands at 4-3 on the season.

Pawtucket was the benefactor of four errors by the Clippers Friday which resulted in four of the seven runs allowed by Columbus being unearned. The PawSox scored three times in both the second and fourth innings to jump out to an early lead they would not relinquish.

Hector Luna continued his hot-streak for Pawtucket as he posted his second consecutive three-hit game. After going 3-for-4 he has multi-hit games in 5-of-his-last-8 games. Over that time Luna has gone 16-for-29 which -- good for a .552 average.

Hideki Okajima and Royce Ring came on for an inning each of scoreless relief to close out the victory for Pawtucket and earn them a split of the four-game series.

With the win, Pawtucket moves a full game up on Lehigh Valley in the I.L. North with 16 games remaining.

The PawSox and Syracuse Chiefs will begin a four-game series Saturday at Fenway Park as part of the Futures at Fenway double-header. Portland will play Binghamton in the first game with the PawSox-Syracuse game scheduled to begin at 4:35 p.m. Kyle Weiland (8-8, 3.40 ERA) will be starting for Pawtucket against Brad Meyers (4-4, 3.79 ERA). The next PawSox game to take place at McCoy Stadium will be Sunday at 1:05 against Syracuse.