Tim Hudson hasn't pitched in almost a year. But on Sunday night it was obvious that he had not forgotten what had made him a two time all-star and 20 game winner. Hudson pitched two hitless innings in his rehab start in Myrtle Beach, as the Pelicans topped the Dash 7-2.
Hudson struck out the first and the final batter he faced in the two innings. He allowed one baserunner, a first inning walk to former FMU player Justin Greene. His fastball reached 93 mph on the gun.
After his outing, Hudson said his velocity and movement were comparable to what they were before his surgery. In August, Hudson had Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow, and has not taken the mound since. He will pitch again in Myrtle Beach on Thursday.
Hudson admitted to being nervous to be back on the mound after such a long layoff. But he also said that the start could not have gone any better.
After Hudson left the game, Myrtle Beach’s offense awakened in the middle innings against Dash starter Jacob Rasner. In the fourth, the Pelicans capitalized on a Michael Fisher leadoff walk and an error charged to Winston-Salem’s Brent Morel to put two aboard. A wild pitch advanced Fisher and Donell Linares to scoring position, and the pair scored by way of a Cody Johnson RBI groundout and a run-scoring double by Ernesto Mejia to give the Pelicans a 2-0 lead after four.
The Birds used the longball in the sixth to break the game open with Linares crushing his eighth homer of the season to lead off the inning. Cody Johnson reached on a walk, stole second and came home on a Mejia RBI single, and two batters later, it was catcher Benji Johnson with his seventh jack of the season, a two-run shot giving the Pelicans a 6-0 lead. Two innings later, Cody Johnson etched his name atop the Pelicans’ record book with his 24th home run of 2009, besting the previous Myrtle Beach single-season mark of 23 set by Mike Hessman in 1999. Johnson already owned the record for homers by a left-handed Pelican in a single season, and the 20-year-old currently leads all of Minor League Baseball in home runs.
Pelicans’ right-hander Jacob Thompson (3-2) spun six and a third innings of relief behind Hudson, keeping the Dash off the scoreboard until the ninth when they scored two runs, both charged to Thompson, off fellow reliever Pat Currin.
The two teams will play again tomorrow.
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