Lockwood Logs Two Home Runs, BG Salvages Split in 10-2 Win

Bowling Green, Ky. - Bowling Green salvaged a split of the four-game series against Dayton, as the bats came alive to the tune of 17 hits - one shy of a season-high - with a pair of four-run innings, in a 10-1 shellacking of the Dragons in front of 2,903 fans on Rays Day Sunday at Bowling Green Ballpark.

Hunter Lockwood smashed a pair of home runs - his second career multi-homer game - with a season-high four RBI, while Mac James went 3-for-4 with his third home run, Justin Williams contributed three hits and three runs scored, and Cristian Toribio plated a pair for a run-starved offense that had scored just 11 runs over the last seven games and 20 runs over the previous 10 games. Bowling Green had not scored more than three runs in a game since June 14, a 10-6 home win over Wisconsin.

Four runs scored in the bottom of the first inning for Bowling Green (2-2, 39-35), as the first five batters of the game reached base for the first time all year. Thomas Milone lined a pitch off the foot of Dayton (2-2, 41-33) starter Junior Morillo for a leadoff infield single then scored on a Riley Unroe double into the left-field corner, giving the Hot Rods a 1-0 lead.

Following a Bralin Jackson single into right field on the next pitch, Williams brought Jackson home with a single to left field, making it a 2-0 game. Lockwood singled to load the bases and back-to-back sacrifice flies followed from James and Toribio resulting in 4-0 Hot Rods cushion.

Lockwood hit his first of two home runs on the day in the bottom of the third, extending the Hot Rods advantage to 5-0, taking the first pitch he saw from Morillo over the left-field wall for his fourth of the year.

In the fifth inning, Lockwood barely stayed within the confines of Bowling Green Ballpark, hitting his second home run in as many at-bats and fifth of the campaign, a titanic 429-foot shot to left, scoring Jackson and Williams for a three-run bomb, giving the Hot Rods an 8-0 advantage. James followed two pitches later with a home run of his own, marking the second time this season that the Hot Rods have hit back-to-back home runs, extending the margin to 9-0.

Morillo (1-2) allowed a career-worst nine runs over 4.1 innings on a career-high tying 10 hits, while striking out two and walking two in his fifth start back from Tommy John surgery in 2014.

While the Hot Rods offense was firing on all cylinders, Hunter Wood also had a standout performance, marking his first start of the 2015 season, facing the minimum through three frames and shutting out the Dragons over 5.0 innings of work, giving up just two hits and striking out six while walking none in collecting his first win of the season and first in a starting role since Aug. 13, 2014 in Hudson Valley.

Dayton scored its first run of the game in the top of the sixth inning against Ryan Pennell, when Narciso Crook led off the frame with a double and scored on a Gavin LaValley two-out single, cutting into the Hot Rods lead at 9-1.

Toribio became the ninth and final Hot Rod to reach base safely in the bottom of the sixth, blooping a two-out RBI single into shallow right field, scoring Jackson, who reached on a one-out single into right-centerfield, re-giving Bowling Green the nine-run edge at 10-1.

Paul Kronenfeld hit LaValley home to give the Dragons another run in the top of the ninth for a 10-2 count, but Brian Miller finished the final two innings on just two hits and one strikeout to preserve the triumph.

All nine Hot Rods had at least one hit, while six players scored a run and five drove in a run. The squad hit a collective 5-for-10 with runners in scoring position after fashioning a .177 clip over the previous 10 games.

Bowling Green begins a five-game road trip on Monday in Fort Wayne at 6:05 p.m. CDT, when Henry Centeno (4-4, 4.81) makes his first start of the second half against TinCaps All-Star southpaw Thomas Dorminy (4-3, 3.78).

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