Fregio ‘pitches beyond his years’ in Wild Things’ win
Wild Things pitcher Dariel Fregio is young and has been in professional baseball for all of two starts, so he’s still learning Frontier League hitters and how to attack each one.
A rookie out of St. Leo, a Division II university in Florida, Fregio is simply trying to establish some consistency from outing to outing.
In a series opener Tuesday morning at Wild Things Park, Fregio was fantastic all the way through the seventh inning. He worked fast, threw strikes and pitched to contact to stymie the Trois-Rivieres Aigles and earn his first pro win as Washington pulled out a 5-1 victory before a crowd of 2,734 on Kids Day.
Fregio (1-0) allowed one run on seven hits and two walks over seven innings. He did not strike out a batter but that didn’t seem to matter against the travel-weary but aggressive Aigles.
“The kid’s numbers in college said that he throws strikes,” Washington manager Tom Vaeth said. “Two scouts who I talked to about him both said that he controls the fastball and he can control his slider and has an idea about what he can do with that pitch.
“One thing about him is, he pitches beyond his years. He hasn’t shown any signs of getting rattled.”
On this day, the 23-year-old Fregio controlled the Aigles, who arrived in Washington at 7:30 a.m., less than four hours before first pitch. Trois-Rivieres had an off-day Monday and was planning to leave Quebec late in the day for its trip to Washington. Before the team’s bus could even pick up the players and coaches, it developed a problem and had to return to the garage. Another bus had to be summoned to take the Aigles on the 12-hour trip.
“We had to make the trip on one stop,” Trois-Rivieres manager Matthew Rusch said. “It was a very difficult trip. We arrived at the hotel at 7:30 a.m. and left for the ballpark at 9 a.m. … That’s life in the minors.”
The Aigles did score first, pushing across their lone run in the second inning. They loaded the bases with one out on singles by Steve Brown and Ricardo Sanchez around a walk to Brandon Dadsen. One out later, Fregio hit Austin Markman, the No. 9 hitter in the lineup, with a pitch that forced home a run.
Washington pitched scoreless ball the rest of the way. Christian James pitched the eighth inning and Justin Goossen-Brown tossed the ninth.
“The first couple of innings, I noticed they were being really aggressive against me, so I had to mix in a couple of changeups to get guys out and work to contact,” Fregio said. “I didn’t have the best slider today. I do think in my two outings I’ve been the best version of me, expect for the walks.”
Washington tied the score at 1-1 in the third when Anthony Brocato doubled off the centerfield wall and scored on a single by Wagner Lagrange, who went 3-for-4 with a home run after his 19-game on-base streak was snapped Sunday at Florence.
The Wild Things took a 2-1 lead in the fourth. Abraham Sequera hit an infield single, stole second base and scored on a line-drive single by Brocato.
In the fifth, Washington added on by doing damage after the Aigles retired the first two batters of the inning. A walk to Melvin Novoa, a single by Tristan Peterson and an error on a grounder by Tommy Caufield loaded the bases and Robert Chayka hit a two-run single to left field to make it 4-1.
Lagrange capped the scoring with an opposite-field homer to right in the sixth. It was Lagrange’s team-leading 18th home run.
The Washington defense helped its pitchers with several key plays. Novoa, the catcher, threw out two potential base stealers. In the fourth, Trois-Rivieres had a runner on first base and two outs when Markman grounded a ball up the left-field line and into the corner. Lagrange dug the ball out of the corner, threw to Sequera about 170 feet up the line and he fired a strike to Novoa to get Victor Cerny at home plate for the inning’s final out.
Extra bases
It was the first time Trois-Rivieres played at Wild Things Park. The former Can-Am League merged with the Frontier League in October of 2019 and the Aigles were the last of the Can-Am teams to play in Washington. … The Wild Things stole seven bases, all in the first four innings. … Trois-Rivieres starter Blake Garrett (0-1), who was signed to the roster before the game, allowed two earned runs over 4 2/3 innings.