KINSTON - K-Tribe starting pitcher Kelvin De La Cruz struck out a career high ten batters, as Kinston won their season opener over the Winston-Salem Dash 5-2 at Historic Grainger Stadium.  De La Cruz went six innings giving up just two hits and two earned runs.  The pitching performance was capped off by the professional debut of Taiwan’s Chen-Chang Lee who threw two scoreless innings.  Josh Judy pitched a scoreless ninth inning to get his first save of the season.

Things started great for the K-Tribe as Tim Fedroff led off the bottom of the first with a home run in his first Carolina League at bat.  Kinston would tie the score at two in the bottom of the fourth with an RBI single from Roman Pena.  The score would stay tied until the sixth inning when Kinston loaded the bases and scored on two wild pitches by Winston-Salem reliever Henry Mabee.  The K-Tribe would add an insurance run with an RBI single by Matt Brown in the seventh inning.  Brown went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI in his Carolina League debut.

The K-Tribe will take on Winston-Salem for game two of their four game series Friday night at 7pm in Historic Grainger Stadium.  This will be the only Friday night of the season without fireworks, as we celebrate Delmont Miller night.  Jeanmar Gomez will take the mound for the K-Tribe.

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