Iowa Cubs 7, Toledo Mud Hens 3 (F/10) (box)
Toledo let a strong start from Dylan File slip away before things unraveled in the 10th inning. Iowa has won three straight after dropping the first two games of the series.
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File’s only damage came in the top of the first. James Triantos hit a leadoff home run, and Ben Cowles followed with a double. File responded by retiring 18 of the next 22 batters he faced, working around a pair of doubles, a single and a walk. He struck out six through as many innings.
File’s stuff was solid for most of the night. He landed first-pitch strikes to 20 of 24 batters and induced 10 whiffs. The changeup was particularly effective, producing four whiffs on five swings. His four-seamer also induced four whiffs and four strikeouts while averaging 93 mph.
The Mud Hens’ offense was fairly quiet until the fifth, when it gave File a lead to work with. Trei Cruz and Chris Meyers opened the frame with back-to-back singles, and Andrew Navigato moved both of them up with a sacrifice bunt. Max Burt drove them in with a two-out single up the middle.
Nick Sandlin replaced File in the seventh and held the 2-1 lead through two dominant innings. Four of his six outs came on strikeouts, and nine of his 31 pitches drew a swing-and-miss. Sandlin’s splitter and slider both worked well, drawing five and three whiffs, respectively. The Cubs only put two balls in play against him and reached base once on a walk.
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Ricky Vanasco was tasked with clsoing it out, but he couldn’t preserve the lead. A hit batter, wild pitch and single put the tying run on third, and Ethan Hearn knotted things up at two with a sharp liner up the middle. Vanasco’s woes didn’t stop there. Navigato mishandled a potential double-play ball, allowing the go-ahead run to score. The defense converted the next double-play opportunity, but the damage was already done.
Josue Briceño led off the bottom of the ninth with a walk, but it was Cruz who ended up scoring the tying run after a failed sac bunt. Meyers singled Cruz to third, and Cruz came home on a wild pitch. Meyers tried to score on the same play, but Iowa recovered and tagged him out at the plate, forcing extras.
The failed walk-off attempt meant Jack Little took over on the mound with an automatic runner on second in the 10th, and he was not prepared for the moment. After getting the leadoff man to ground out, Little walked the next three batters to give up the lead. Justin Dean cleared the bases with a double, and all of a sudden Toledo was staring at a four-run deficit.
The Hens went down 1-2-3 in the bottom half of the 10th to end an exciting game on a sour note.
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Meyers: 2-4, R, K
Burt: 1-4, 2 RBI
Briceño: 1-3, 2B, BB, K
File: 6.0 IP, ER, 5 H, BB, 6 K, HR
Coming Up Next: The series concludes Sunday at 2:05 p.m. ET.
Erie SeaWolves 7, New Hampshire Fisher Cats 0 (box)
Erie was the only Tigers affiliate to win Saturday, and it did so emphatically. The SeaWolves launched four home runs while Kenny Serwa and the bullpen combined on a two-hit shutout.
Peyton Graham got Erie on the board early, homering to left-center field in the first. Luke Shliger hit the second solo shot of the game in the next inning. Shliger has shown some juice with two homers in six games since being called up to Double-A.
Serwa was solid through seven shutout frames, allowing just two hits and three walks while striking out six. That’s his second straight seven-inning start, and he generated 10 whiffs this time around.
The SeaWolves broke the game open in the fifth. Clayton Campbell notched his first Double-A hit, a single, to spark the one-out rally. Viandel Pena followed with another single, and Woody Hadeen drove both of them in with a triple off the wall in left.
Graham came up next and blasted his second home run of the night, a two-run shot and his ninth of the season.
Izaac Pacheco tacked on another run for good measure, hitting Erie’s fourth homer of the game in the sixth.
Yoniel Curet went 1-2-3 in the eighth, drawing three whiffs and two strikeouts on 11 pitches. Tanner Kohlhepp finished things off with a clean ninth.
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Graham: 3-4, 2 HR (8, 9), 2 R, 3 RBI, CS
Hadeen: 1-4, 3B (1), R, 2 RBI, K
Shliger: 1-4, HR (2), R, RBI, K
Pacheco: 1-3, HR (16), R, RBI, BB, K
Serwa (W, 7-8): 7.0 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 3 BB, 6 K
Coming Up Next: Joe Miller starts Sunday’s 1:35 p.m. ET finale against Nolan Perry. Erie leads the series 3-2.
South Bend Cubs 4, West Michigan Whitecaps 3 (box)
Bryce Rainer’s power surge continued Saturday, but West Michigan couldn’t make his three-run homer stand. South Bend scored four unanswered runs over the final three innings to take a 3-2 series lead.
The first five innings featured a pitching duel between Connor Fenlong and Pierce Coppola. Fenlong allowed the first two Cubs to reach base — a leadoff single and John Peck made an error at short — but he retired 16 batters in a row after that. Coppola was just as good, holding the Whitecaps hitless with seven strikeouts and two walks over five innings.
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Cristian Santana broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff single in the sixth. Phew. Jackson Strong walked right after, and Bryce Rainer hit a three-run homer to put West Michigan ahead 3-0. Rainer just saw that franchise-record streak of five consecutive games with a home run come to an end on Friday, but he’s right back at it a day later. That’s six in seven games and 16 on the year for the former first-round pick.
Fenlong returned for the bottom of the sixth, looking for a quality start, but he was knocked out of the game with two outs after a pair of homers. Still, it was a very good outing for him, one that featured 15 whiffs. Juanmi Vasquez got the final out of the sixth and worked around a single in a scoreless seventh before turning it over to Ryan Harvey.
South Bend saw Harvey well and lit him up for four hits in the first five plate appearances against him. A leadoff double and trio of singles were enough to put the Cubs in front going into the final frame.
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Stephen Hrustich reached on a throwing error in the ninth, but he never made it into scoring position.
Rainer: 1-4, HR (16), R, 3 RBI, 3 K
Santana: 1-1, R, 2 BB
Fenlong: 5.2 IP, 2 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 7 K, 2 HR
Harvey (L, 4-5): 1.0 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, K
Coming Up Next: The series concludes Sunday at 2:05 p.m. ET.
St. Lucie Mets 6, Lakeland Flying Tigers 2 (F/10) (box)
Lakeland’s five-game winning streak ended in dramatic fashion Saturday. The Flying Tigers took a one-run lead in the top of the 10th, but St. Lucie answered with five runs and a walk-off grand slam in the bottom half.
Kelvis Salcedo continued the organizational trend of good starts with 4 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit while striking out six. His stuff was solid, with the cutter and splitter doing most of the work. Both pitches had a 41% called-strike-plus-whiff rate and led to a combined eight of his nine total whiffs. He topped out at 96.8 mph with both the sinker and the four-seamer averaging 95 mph or better.
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Zach MacDonald gave the Flying Tigers a 1-0 lead in the fourth. Michael Oliveto walked, Jesus Pinto singled to put men on the corners and MacDonald got the RBI base knock to left. Lakeland had a chance for more runs with the bases loaded, but Jude Warwick flied out to end the inning.
Pedro Garcia cleaned up the final out of the fifth for Lakeland, and Owen Hall took over for another long-relief appearance in the sixth. Hall struck out three of the first five batters he faced, but his command started to slip in the seventh. He hit a batter and walked another but got out of the inning without giving up the lead.
A leadoff single and a pair of walks loaded the bases in the eighth for St. Lucie. The Flying Tigers turned to Leonardo Rossell to get out of the jam with two outs, but he threw a wild pitch before reloading the bases with a walk. Fortunately, a flyout ended the inning, but Hall gets the earned run on his record.
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Neither team scored in the ninth, sending things into extras. Michael Oliveto drove in the automatic runner on second with a one-out double, restoring the one-run lead.
Bryce Alewine came in to get the save, and it all went bad. A sac bunt and sac fly tied the game. Then, Alewine loaded the bases with a walk, a single and a hit batter. Jack Toomey took a first-pitch sinker and launched it over the fence in left-center for a walk-off grand slam. Sigh.
Oliveto: 1-4, 2B (5), R, RBI, BB, K
MacDonald: 1-4, RBI, BB, K
Salcedo: 4.2 IP, 0 R, H, 0 BB, 6 K
Alewine (L, 0-1): 0.2 IP, 5 R, 4 ER, 2 H, BB, HR
Coming Up Next: The series concludes Sunday at 12:10 p.m. ET. Lakeland leads 4-1.
