Lake County Sentinel
Captains wreck Hot Rods 7-2
BY TIM SHIRER
CAPTAINS BEAT WRITER
The Captains continued their seven game home stand with game one of their three game series with the Bowling Green Hot Rods on Tuesday night at Classic Park. The Captains took game one 7-2.
The Captains got on the board right away in the first inning with two runs. The runs came off Bowling Green starter knuckleballer Taylor Hawkins. The knuckler walked the first two Captains Sam Haggerty and Willi Castro to start game. He then gave up a single to Tyler Krieger to load the bases. He then hit Nathan Lukes and forced home Haggerty with the Captains first run. After Hawkins struck out Connor Marabell he issued a base on balls to Yonathan Mendoza and Castro crossed the plate with the Captains second run.
The Hot Rods got on the board with their first run in the second inning when Brett Sullivan singled off Captains starter Shao-Ching Chiang. Sullivan then stole second base when the call was clearly blown by fill in umpire Anthony Nagy. Sullivan would eventually score when Kevin Padlo hit a ground rule double over the third base bag, cutting the Captains lead to 2-1.
The remained a pitcher’s duel until the fifth inning when the Captains got a single run and then added two more in the sixth off Hot Rods reliever Michael Velasquez to take a 5-1 lead.
Chiang cruised along only allowing the one run in seven innings pitched on only 64 pitches, 41 were strikes.
The Captains added two runs in the eighth inning to complete their scoring and run the lead to six at 7-1. The Hot Rods scored the final run of the game in the ninth inning off Captains reliever Jared Robinson.
Chiang picked up the win for Lake County and improved to 4-3 with a 4.18 ERA. Hawkins took the loss for Bowling Green and falls to 4-3 with a 3.47 ERA.
Game two of the three game series will be played Wednesday night at 6:30. Righty Roel Ramirez will take the mound for the Hot Rods. Ramirez is 2-2 with 6.12 ERA. Tom Pannone will take the hill for the Captains. Pannone a lefty is 3-4 with a 3.40 ERA.
tshirer@lakecountysentinel.com or follow Tim on Twitter @IndiansTim Check out our IndiansNation fan page
POSTED 05/31/2016 22:
Photo by Tim Phillis