VALLEYCATS PITCHING QUIETS JACKALS FOR SERIES WIN
TROY, NY - The Tri-City ValleyCats (48-30) won the rubber game 5-1 over the New Jersey Jackals (47-30) on Sunday at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium. New Jersey opened the scoring for the third consecutive game. Martin Figueroa worked a walk against Jhon Vargas in the first. James Nelson singled, and Figueroa came around after Keon Barnum reached on an error from Juan Kelly to provide the Jackals with a 1-0 lead. Tri-City responded in the bottom of the first. Tanner Smith doubled, and Cito Culver moved him to third with a groundout. Smith scored on a wild pitch to make it a 1-1 game. Oscar Campos launched a go-ahead homer to pull the ValleyCats ahead, 2-1. It was his fifth long ball of the season. Smith singled in the third, and Aaron Altherr lifted an RBI double. Jakob Goldfarb singled, and Altherr went to third. Campos had an RBI fielder's choice to put the 'Cats on top, 4-1. Tri-City added an insurance run in the seventh. Smith greeted Lance Lusk with his second double of the day, and advanced to third on the same play after Alfredo Marte bobbled the ball in right field. Culver hit an RBI single to make it a 5-1 affair. Caden O'Brien came in relief after Vargas, and tossed two shutout frames. The ValleyCats pulled a houdini act in the eighth. Tyler Jeans allowed three consecutive singles to Phillip Ervin, Figueroa, and Nelson. Jeans struck out Barnum, and afterward, Blake Workman entered the game. On the first pitch he threw, he caught a comebacker from Marte, and doubled up Ervin at third base to escape the jam. Workman notched his second save of the season. He tossed 1.2 scoreless innings, and did not surrender a walk or hit, while striking out one. Vargas (8-4) earned the win. He hurled five frames, yielding an unearned run on one hit, walking two, and matching a season-high with 10 strikeouts. Tavarez (4-1) received the loss. He threw six innings, giving up four runs on seven hits, walking none, and striking out five.
Ottawa, ON - For the second time in as many days, the Ottawa Titans (41-36) split a doubleheader with the New York Boulders (42-32), falling 12-10 in game one, and shutting out game two by a 1-0 final on Sunday afternoon.
Game One - New York 12, Ottawa 10
Both sides exchanged runs in the opening frame, as Andrew Roach (ND, 0-1) and Alex Mack (ND, 0-0) each surrendered one run on one hit. With the score knotted up, the Titans poured it on with four runs on three hits in the second, knocking Mack out of the game. AJ Wright and Taylor Wright connected with two-run singles to put the Titans up 5-1. The Boulders chipped their way back and made it a one-run game, scoring three times against newcomer Thomas Bruss in the third. With runners on the corners against Aaron Dona in the fourth, Joey Terdoslavich put the Titans up 6-4 with an RBI single through the right side. Terdoslavich snapped an 0-11 with the knock. Nick MacDonald (loss, 4-3) worked in bulk for the Titans out of the pen in the opener of the twin bill. Following a scoreless fourth inning, the Boulders used the long ball against the right-hander to pull in front. Gabriel Garcia launched two homers, one in the fifth, and another in the sixth, sandwiched by a Thomas Walraven grand slam in the sixth inning, seeing the Boulders go in front 11-6. In the bottom of the sixth, Ryder Yakel inherited two on and one out for Weston Lombard (win, 2-0), when the righty walked the bases loaded. Jake Sanford blasted a bases-clearing double to put the Titans within two. Making yet another pitching change, Dylan Smith (save, 13) allowed a pinch-hit RBI single off the bat of Evan Berkey, as the Titans pulled within a run. The Boulders manufactured a run against Conner Kelly in the seventh, pulling ahead for good at 12-10. Down by a pair, the Titans went down in order in the last of the seventh to drop the first of the twin bill.
Game Two - Ottawa 1, New York 0
Grant Larson's (win, 7-7) complete game led the Titans to the split of the four-game series and of Sunday's doubleheader. The lefty needed only 66 pitches, allowing only four hits to win his seventh decision of the year. All the Titans needed was a third-inning solo homer from Evan Berkey off Dawson Lane (loss, 6-4) to ride out the victory. Berkey is hitting a team-best .423 (11-for-26) with two homers and 10 RBI since August 4. With the win in game two, Grant Larson tosses the first complete-game shutout in regular season franchise history and helps the Titans to their first shutout victory of 2023. Also, the Titans clinch the season series over the Boulders by taking five of the nine contests after splitting it six games apiece a season ago.
Sauget, IL (August 13, 2023) – The Gateway Grizzlies smacked five home runs in the series finale on Sunday against the Joliet Slammers, and backed up the power with pitching, as Collin Sullivan (10-3) pitched a dominant seven innings in a 9-4 victory at Grizzlies Ballpark, lowering their magic number to clinch a spot in the 2023 Frontier League playoffs to seven. After Sullivan struck out three of the first six hitters he faced, Gateway got to work offensively in the bottom of the second inning, scoring a pair of runs on four total hits, including RBI singles by Kyle Gaedele and Alex Hernandez, to take a 2-0 lead. The Grizzlies would expand that lead in three straight innings with the long ball- Eric Rivera's solo shot off Joliet starter Ricky Castro (4-5) made it 3-0 in the third, with Gaedele and Hernandez each hitting homers in a three-run fourth inning to increase the lead to 6-0. Mark Vierling then smacked his first pro home run to right field in the fifth inning to make it a 7-0 game. Meanwhile, Sullivan cruised through the Slammers' lineup, allowing just two baserunners in the first five innings before a two-run home run by Christian Fedko broke up the shutout and made the score 7-2. Undaunted, Sullivan completed the sixth and then tossed a scoreless seventh, finishing with eight strikeouts to earn his Frontier League-leading 10th win of the season. The Grizzlies would add single runs in the seventh and eighth on a wild pitch by Chandler Brierley following a Rivera triple as well as a solo home run by Cole Barr, respectively, to cap their scoring, while the Slammers added a two-run homer by Matt Warkentin in the ninth, but could not get closer as the Grizzlies won the series and finished 9-3 against the Slammers in 2023.
