Captains bats pound Whitecaps 9-2.

(EASTLAKE, OH) - Sunday afternoon the Lake County Captains and West Michigan Whitecaps finished their six-game series. The last two games were pitcher’s duels 2-1 the Captains won on Friday and the Whitecaps won on Saturday. Sunday was a much different story as the Captains bats exploded in a 9-2 win sending the nice Sunday crowd of 4,151.

The Whitecaps struck first when Captains starter Tommy Mace allowed a lead off double to Colt Keith and then issued a base on balls to Ben Malgeri to start the top of the second inning. With Trei Cruz at the plate Mace uncorked a wild pitch moving Keith and Malgeri to second and third base. After Cruz reached on a base on balls Jose King grounded into a double play driving home Keith with the first run of the game. Mace left the game after one more hitter with a pitch count of 35 pitches and was replaced by Raymond Burgos who recorded the final out of the inning.

The Captains came right back in the bottom of the inning and tied the game courtesy of Gabriel Rodriguez’s third home run of the season over the left field fence.

Lake County took the lead in the bottom of the third when Angel Martinez smacked his second home run of the season deep over the right field wall to give the Captains a 2-1 lead.

The big blow for the Captains came in the fifth inning with the bases loaded after a single by Micael Ramirez to lead off the inning. After Korey Holland struck out Martinez doubled moving Ramirez to third base. The Whitecaps then decided a pitching change was needed; Michael Bienlien replaced starter Jordan Marks. Bienlien came in and got Petey Halpin to pop out to left field. The Whitecaps then intentionally walked Jhonkensy Noel which turned out to be a mistake as Alexfri Planez came to the plate and belted his second home run of the season over the left field wall giving the Captains a 6-1 lead.

The Captains added a seventh run in the seventh inning when Martinez belted his second home run of the game third of the season over the indoor batting cage behind the right field fence to put the Captains ahead 7-1.

Lake County put two more insurance runs up on the board in the eighth inning to finish out the scoring on their end and increase the lead to eight runs at 9-1.

The Whitecaps picked up a run in the ninth inning off Captains reliever Damon Casetta-Stubbs.

Martinez drove in three runs for Lake County in the contest while going 3 for 5 at the plate raising his average to .279. Planez drove in four while going 2 for 4 on the day including the grand slam.

Burgos picked up the win for Lake County and improves to 2-1 with a 3.00 ERA. Marks was tagged with the loss for West Michigan and falls to 0-4 with a 6.31 ERA.

With the win the Captains improve to 26-24 on the season and a game and a half behind the Great Lakes Loons for the final first half playoff spot in the Midwest League Eastern Division. The Captains are in third place nine games behind the first place Dayton Dragons.

The Captains will have the day off on Monday and travel to Fort Wayne to start a six-game series with the TinCaps on Tuesday night at 7:05 pm. Pitchers are TBA, but Tanner Bibee will be the likely starter for the Captains. Bibee, a righthander is 0-1 with a 2.95 ERA.

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POSTED 06/05/2022 16:00

Lake County Captains . Photo by Tim Shirer