Lake County Sentinel
Bullpen collapse dooms Captains 4-0
BY TIM SHIRER
CAPTAINS BEAT WRITER
The Lake County Captains hoped to continue their winning ways on Wednesday morning when they played game three in their four-game series with the Great Lakes Loons. Unfortunately for the Captains and the 3,057 fans in attendance Lake County took the loss 4-0 on a late rally by the Loons.
The story of the game through the first six inning was Captain’s starting pitcher Lefty Juan Hillman. The big lefty retired the first 17 batters he faced before issuing a base on balls to Gersel Pitre with two outs in the sixth inning. Hillman finally allowed a hit with one out in the seventh inning when Cody Thomas doubled to center field.
Hillman went seven strong innings allowing only the one hit, two base on balls and struck out eight Loons. Hillman threw 90 pitches, 57 were strikes.
Great Lakes starter A.J. Alexy didn’t exactly pitch a bad game either. Alexy, allowed only two hits along with three base on balls and struck out six batters in five shutout innings.
Things completely fell apart in the ninth inning when Captains reliever Jacob Lee walked the first two Loons to start the inning. All-star Ryder Ryan then replaced Lee on the mound walked the first batter he faced. Then the big blow of the inning came. On the first pitch to Keibert Ruiz, Ruiz planted the ball deep over the right center field fence to give the Loons a 4-0 lead, which was eventually the final score.
Andre Scrubb picked up the win for the Loons. Scrubb pitched two innings, allowing one base hit, one base on balls and struck out three Captains. With the win Scrubb improves to 3-0 with a 1.27 ERA. Lee took the loss for the Captains. With the loss, he falls to 0-1 with a 5.06 ERA.
The Captains and Loons will wrap up the series on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. Righthander Jordan Sheffield will take the mound for the Loons. Sheffield is 1-5 with a 3.16 ERA. Luis Jimenez will be on the mound for the Captains. Jimenez, a righty is 1-2 with a 4.68 ERA. .
tshirer@lakecountysentinel.com or follow Tim on Twitter @IndiansTim Check out our IndiansNation fan Page
POSTED 06/28/2017 14:37
Captains catcher Li-Jen Chu. Photo by Greg Goth