Photo: Manuel, Mark (uploader)
The Quad Cities River Bandits lost their second extra-inning game of the season on Wednesday as they fell 11-4 to the South Bend Cubs in 10 innings at Modern Woodmen Park.
In his first professional start, Dante Biasi faced one over the minimum in the first three innings and set the stage for the Bandits in the bottom of third when Nick Loftin led off the inning with a triple against Matteo Bocchi. Two batters, Michael Massey brought in the game’s first run with a sacrifice-fly and put the Bandits on top.
After Biasi stranded a pair of South Bend runners in the top of the fourth to end his scoreless outing, Quad Cities tacked on another via an RBI single by Seuly Matias that scored Eric Cole, who led off the bottom of the frame with his second double of the night.
However, South Bend took advantage of Yohanse Morel’s struggles in the fifth inning as a pair of one-out walks led to Delvin Zinn’s RBI single, which came off the heals of a wild pitch that allowed Josue Huma to plate the Cubs’ first run of the game.
The next batter, Yonathan Perlaza, kept the rally going with two outs and doubled down the right field line and then scored on Tyler Durna’s RBI single to center that gave his club the 3-2 before Morel walked Nelson Velazquez to bring in Peyton Gray after just 0.2 innings on the hill. Gray stuck out the only man he faced in the fifth, Bryce Ball, to end frame.
South Bend extended the lead to 4-2 in the top of the sixth as Huma and Edmond Americaan successfully competed a double steal and got a run when Huma advanced home when Logan Porter’s overthrew Massey while trying to catch the Americaan at second.
In the bottom of the seventh however, Quad Cities also found success against the opposition’s bullpen when Tucker Bradley and Nathan tied the game with a pair of solo shots off of Hunter Bigge to tie the game at 4-4.
Neither team scored in the final two frames as Nathan Webb struck out five-straight Cubs hitters to get to the bottom of the ninth and Bigge settled down to go one-two-three in the eighth before Burl Carraway stranded the winning run on second in the bottom of the ninth to send it to extras.
In the top of the tenth, Webb allowed a leadoff single to Durna, but then struck out Velazquez and Ball with two men on. However, Jake Slaughter’s RBI single to give the Cubs the 5-4 lead started an avalanche of runs, as a walk to Dean Navarez to loaded the bases and led to Huma’s bases-clearing triple that blew the game open to 8-4.
Webb’s day came to an end after the righty then allowed another two-out baserunner in Americaan’s single.
Down by four, Chris Widger inserted backup catcher/first baseman Gavin Stupienski who made his professional pitching debut and allowed a two-run homer to Delvin Zinn before eventually getting Durna to flyout and end the inning with Quad Cities trailing 11-4.
The Bandits put up little fight in the bottom of the tenth and went down in order to Graham Lawson who put the finishing touches on South Bend’s first win of the series.
Webb (0-1) took the loss for Quad Cities after allowing six runs, five earned, on five hits, one walk and seven strikeouts, while Carraway (1-0) got his first win of the year for the South Bend thanks to clean frame.
Quad Cities will look to retake the lead in the series on Thursday behind Charlie Neuweiler (0-1, 5.87) who toes the rubber against South Bend’s Blake Whitney (0-0, 2.70). First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CDT at Modern Woodmen Park.