Salem Avs to meet and greet at Roanoke libraries in June

When the Pirates completely overhauled their front office in the offseason, they tabbed 29-year-old Kyle Stark, a do-it-all member of the Cleveland Indians’ organization, to be their farm director, replacing veteran minor league manager/evaluator Brian Graham. Stark sat down with the News & Advance for a Q&A when he was in Lynchburg last week.

After three at bats Wednesday, Brian Friday had a single, a double and a triple on his résumé. All that remained for the cycle was a home run, the most difficult leg for the Hillcats shortstop, who has just three long balls in his brief minor league career.

Blair Johnson’s discussions with Hillcats pitching coach Bob Milacki have been curt and to the point recently. Despite entering Thursday night’s game with Kinston at City Stadium with a more-than-respectable 2.81 ERA, Johnson wasn’t happy with his last few outings.

The Hillcats were a small ball model in the early innings against Myrtle Beach on Tuesday. They bunted runners up, swiped a base when it was there and, despite leaving a mess of runners in scoring position, got enough hits to produce a bunch of runs.  That’s a moot strategy when your opponent does all that and more in one inning, though.

Salem used a pair of hits from Koby Clemens to sink Lynchburg Sunday afternoon 3-0 at Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium.

Pulaski baseball is back after a one-year hiatus and it’s up to Wytheville native Marty Gordon to bring the fans back, too.

The Lynchburg Hillcats will play their first home game of the season Friday night. We caught up with the team Friday afternoon as they were warming up.

  The Avs put up 4 runs in the 5th and held off Potomac for a 4-3 win. Roger Clemens was present to see his son have a one-for-three night with an RBI and a run scored.