Noah Adcock-Howeth, Augusta GreenJackets
KINSTON, N.C. – The GreenJackets bid goodbye to the 2024 slate by winning each of their final three games, taking Sunday’s contest by a score of 4-1 to close the book on both the year and professional baseball in Kinston.
The Wood Ducks will move to Spartanburg, S.C. before the 2025 season, opening a brand-new downtown ballpark and becoming the Hub City Spartanburgers as they advance to the South Atlantic League. Kinston has had professional baseball off and on since 1908, with Grainger Stadium serving as its home since 1949 across variations names and iterations including the Kinston Eagles and Kinston Indians.
The GreenJackets were led on the day by Jacob Shafer, who made his fifth professional start to close out the year and found a new gear of dominance on the hill. Shafer fired five innings with just one run allowed, collecting a career-high nine strikeouts and dropping his professional ERA to a measly 1.35 while he earned his first win since being drafted out of UNC Wilmington this July.
Augusta’s offense scored in just two of nine innings, but made the most of the fourth and fifth to take a lead they would hold firm to for the rest of the afternoon. Luis Sanchez began the scoring with two outs in the fourth against Wilian Bormie, dropping a bloop single into shallow right to score Kade Kern, who had doubled the at bat prior. Bormie gave way to Jake Jekeilik in the fifth, and Augusta tagged the sidewinder for three runs, highlighted by a key two-run single from Kern.
Down East’s best chance to rally late came in the sixth, after Shafer held them to just one run through five. The first arm out of Augusta’s pen was Hayder Ortiz, and the volatile righty found early trouble. A single and two walks loaded the bases with one out, putting the go-ahead run at first down the stretch. Ortiz would find his footing just in time, striking out Pablo Guerrero and Keith Jones on back-to-back batters to hold the Wood Ducks off the board.
Jacob Gomez did not allow a baserunner in the seventh or eighth, and Albert Rivas stranded two in the ninth to earn his third save of the season. Augusta finishes the campaign with one last series split, and grab their first three-game win streak on the road since the first half of the season on the way out.
The GreenJackets will finish the year at 49-80, their fewest wins and lowest winning percentage since 2003 when the team went 49-87. Augusta last made the playoffs in 2019, the GreenJackets’ last year in the South Atlantic League as well as their final season as an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. The highlights of the season include five walk-off wins, development of a handful of premier pitching prospects, and the professional debut of Braves’ No. 1 prospect Cam Caminiti.
The GreenJackets will return to SRP Park beginning on Friday, April 4, to kick off the 2025 season as they open up at home against the Columbia Fireflies for the second season in a row. SRP Park will also host a plethora of offseason activities, the list of which can be found at https://thesrppark.com/events-at-srp-park.
