MINERS OUTDUEL CAPITALES
Another game, another great pitching performance by the Miners. This time, they held the Quebec Capitales to five hits, and a three-run seventh inning helped Sussex County to a 5-1 win over the Capitales on Tuesday night at Skylands Stadium. It was Mark Moclair's turn to take the mound for the Miners. And while Moclair did not have a clean 1-2-3 inning in the contest - the leadoff batter reached base in 4 of his 5 innings - Mark did work out those situations well. Mark's had good command of his fastball, which was hitting at 92-94 MPH, with Quebec batters swinging through almost half of his fastballs. The only blemish for Moclair came in the fifth inning, when a leadoff single would come home on a T.J. White groundout. Moclair would go five innings, allowing just the one run on only three hits, walking four and striking out six batters. On the other side was Carlos Sano, and he was up to the task for Quebec. Sano's runs allowed came in the first inning, courtesy of a run scoring single by Juan Santana that knocked in Gavin Stupienski, and then in the sixth inning after Jason Agresti led off with a double, got moved to third on a Santana sacrifice bunt, and scored on an Oraj Anu single with the infield drawn in. Outside of that, Sano turned in a quality start. Two runs on seven hits, with two walks and four strikeouts in six innings of work had the Capitales in position to get back on level terms. However, the Miners pulled away in the seventh. Willie Escala led off with a walk, which was then followed by an Edwin Mateo double. Jawuan Harris then poked a ball into right field to score Escala and make it 3-1 Miners. Three batters later, Juan Santana came up with a big two-run single to make the score 5-1, usually a difficult task for any team to come back from against the Miners bullpen so far this season. And, once again, that was to be the case. Billy Parsons was to be the beneficiary of the run scoring burst in getting the winning decision. Parsons threw two innings in relief, allowing one hit and one walk - both with two outs in the seventh - to keep Quebec at bay. Ronnie Voacolo came on in the eighth inning and posted the same numbers - one hit, one walk, no runs. The lone difference was that Voacolo struck out three Capitales, while Parsons struck out two. With the result from tonight, the Miners bullpen now has an ERA of 1.07 on the season, with a WHIP of 0.76 in fifteen games.
The Schaumburg Boomers belted three homers and finished with a season high 18 hits in tallying a 12-4 win over the Ottawa Titans to open a six-game roadtrip to Canada. Ottawa led 2-0 by scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the second. The Boomers responded with four runs in the top of the third, all coming on singles with two outs. Travis Holt opened the scoring with an RBI single, Chase Dawson followed with an RBI single to tie the game and Blake Berry singled home a pair to give the Boomers the lead. Kyle Fitzgerald extended the advantage with a two-run homer in the fifth and the team scored six unanswered to lead 12-3. Holt connected on his first pro homer in the seventh and Quentin Selma added a two-run blast. John Fiorenza tacked on a two-run single in the ninth. Aaron Glickstein was the beneficiary of the run support, working seven innings and allowing three runs with a walk and six strikeouts. Cristian Lopez worked the final two frames. Every member of the lineup reached base with eight of the nine scoring a run. Selma finished with three hits and three RBIs. Holt and Berry also posted three hits apiece. The Boomers finished with a season best three homers and five extra-base hits. Dawson owns an 11-game hitting streak while Gaige Howard has reached base in every contest this year.
The Gateway Grizzlies got six innings and 10 strikeouts from starter Carson LaRue on Tuesday night, and added insurance runs in the middle and late parts of the game in besting the Lake Erie Crushers 7-1 at Mercy Health Stadium in Avon, Ohio, winning their sixth game in a row and taking the opener of their road trip. The scoring began in the top of the second inning when former Crusher D.J. Stewart came up against his ex-club for the first time since being traded to the Grizzlies in the offseason, and smacked an RBI single to put Gateway ahead 1-0. In the fourth, the Grizzlies expanded the lead with two outs, scoring three times off Kyle Seebach (0-2) on a double by Willie Estrada and a double-steal later in the inning, taking a 4-0 lead. That's all LaRue (2-0) would need in his best start of the season, as the right-hander struck out 10 to tie his career high while walking none and surrendering just six hits, three of which came along with his lone run allowed in the sixth inning, his final frame of the night. In the process, he dealt an "Immaculate Inning," securing the extremely rare baseball feat when he struck out all three batters he faced in the bottom of the fourth on three pitches each, with all of the offerings being strikes. In the eighth, Gateway added three insurance runs to their ledger on another two-run double by Estrada as well as a passed ball, and cruised from there to the victory to improve to 12-4 on the season. Estrada was the biggest bat in the lineup offensively, leading an 11-hit attack by tying his career-highs in both hits (three) and RBIs (four). The game also marked the sixth consecutive contest that the Grizzlies' offense recorded 10 or more hits as a club.
If it were up to the New York Boulders, July Sosa would pitch every single game. The Boulders rolled to their fourth win in as many starts by the right-hander this season, beating the Empire State Greys, 5-2, on Tuesday at Clover Stadium. New York improved to 9-7 overall and 6-1 at home with the victory. Sosa, who set the franchise record for strikeouts in a game (12) on May 19, struck out eight while allowing two earned runs over seven strong innings on the mound. The Monroe College product earned his second consecutive win and third consecutive quality start. On the offensive side, the top of the order led the way for New York. The Boulders' top four hitters — Giovanni Garbella, David Vinsky, Patrick Kivlehan and Tucker Nathans — went a combined 7 for 16 with two RBI and four runs scored. Kivlehan delivered the biggest blast of the game for New York, sending a solo home run deep into the left field bleachers in the bottom of the seventh inning. Chris Kwitzer, who had an RBI double in the first inning, was the only other Boulders player to drive in a run. Dylan Smith tossed a scoreless ninth inning to earn his third save of the season. New York jumped out to an early three-run lead in the first inning and never looked back. Empire State did pull within one run in the top of the fifth, thanks to a two-run home run by Jordan Scott, but were never able to so much as tie the game at any point.
The Evansville Otters scored five in the sixth inning and three in the seventh to cruise past the Windy City ThunderBolts 10-3 in the series opener Tuesday night at Bosse Field. The Otters trailed by one entering the bottom of the sixth inning and small ball keyed the inning. Bryan Rosario led off with a walk and a steal. Jake Green followed with a bunt base hit and Kelvin Melean laid down a squeeze bunt that was thrown away by the Windy City pitcher, leading to the first run of the inning. A Noah Myers double, Ethan Skinder single and Dakota Phillips fielder's choice would lead to three more runs and Skinder would score on a wild pitch to close out the five-run inning. Evansville busted the game open in the seventh with Noah Myers' two-run homer over the right field wall. Myers finished the day with three hits, finishing a triple shy of the cycle. He added five RBIs, accounting for half of the Otters' runs. On the mound, Jhon Vargas earned his second win of the season for Evansville. The righty allowed nine hits but limited the ThunderBolts to just three runs while striking out eight batters. All three Windy City runs scored in the fourth inning. Evansville scored first for the 14th consecutive game with Skinder scoring on a fielder's choice. Their second run came in the fourth on a Myers RBI hit before the Otters would take the lead in the sixth. Jon Beymer worked a perfect two innings in relief, striking out five ThunderBolts. Kevin Davis closed out the game, striking out the side in the ninth. Evansville pitchers struck out a total of 16 batters. Bryan Rosario had another productive day on the basepaths for Evansville with three stolen bases and three runs. He leads the league with 16 stolen bases. Jomar Reyes had two hits to extend his hit streak to 11 games. He has reached base in all 13 games he's played in this season.
