Photo: Manuel, Mark (uploader)
Fueled by 14 hits and runs in the first five innings, the Quad Cities River Bandits trounced the Beloit Snappers on Thursday as they came away with a 10-3 victory for their second win in-a-row at Pohlman Field.
The Bandits wasted no time jumping on starting Bryan Hoeing early on and got their first home run of the night thanks to Vinnie Pasquantino whose solo blast made it 1-0 in the first.
Fresh off of throwing six shutout innings in a combined no-hitter, Zach Haake stranded a pair of singles in the bottom half and saw Jake Means whack his third home run of the season in the second. After a Jimmy Govern walk and a Logan Porter double, Tucker Bradley cracked into the RBI column for the first of five times on then night and plated Govern with a groundball.
Offense continued to pour off of the Bandits’ bats in the third and made the game 4-0 when Tyler Gentry singled in Pasquantino, who tripled five pitches earlier.
Still working in the ballgame, Hoeing’s night got even worse in the fourth when Govern and Bradley both tagged him for solo shots and extended the Bandits’ lead to 6-0, while Haake kept the Beloit offense quiet by posting a one-two-three inning with two punchouts in the bottom frame.
Quad Cities blew the open and finally chased Hoeing with a four-run fifth and got RBI efforts from John Rave on a single and Tucker Bradley who unloaded the bases with a three-run triple against newly entered Brady Puckett to extend his club’s lead to 10-0.
Yohanse Morel took picked up right where Haake left off in the sixth and retired the Snappers in order. But in the seventh, Beloit finally broke through with a trio of runs stemming from an RBI triple from Nic Ready and then a two-run homer from Marcos Rivera.
With Quad Cities leading 10-3, Zack Phillips closed things out in the eighth and the ninth and didn’t allow a baserunner while striking out a pair in the former en route to the Bandits’ league-best 29th win.
On top in the series two games to one, Quad Cities will send Anthony Veneziano (1-1, 3.91) to the mound in game four, while Beloit will roll with Kyle Nicolas (3-1, 5.13) for a 6:35 p.m. CT first pitch on Friday at Pohlman Field.