West Michigan Beats Captains 8-4

(Comstock Park, MI) - Devon Travis hit two homeruns and had five RBI's as The West Michigan Whitecaps (7-8) defeated the Lake County Captains by a final of 8-4 on Monday night. Travis homered in the bottom of the first to give West Michigan a 2-1 lead. Then, with his team trailing in the third inning Travis hit a ball into the left center field gap, and it went all the way to the wall. Travis motored all the way around for an inside the park homerun to tie the game and his team never looked back.

The Captains got on the board first, In the bottom of the first inning, The Captains used three straight singles to open the scoring. Luigi Rodriguez, Dorssys Paulino and Eric Haase all singled and Haase's base hit scored Rodriguez. The score was 1-0 Captains.

After the homer by Travis to make the score 2-1, The Captains scored three runs in the top of the second inning. The bases were loaded with one out and Luigi Rodriguez singled home two. Logan Vick was headed to third, and the throw was wild allowing Vick to score the third run of the inning. Lake County led 4-2.

The lead was cut to one when Adolfo Reina reached on an error and moved to third on a wild pitch. He later scored and the lead was 4-3 Captains. The game was tied at 4-4 on the Inside the park homerun by Travis. West Michigan took the lead in the fifth for good. Lance Durham hit an two run double up the gap to right field and the score was 6-4 Whitecaps.

West Michigan added to the lead when Devon Travis stepped to the plate in the eighth inning. With two outs, and two on Travis doubled to left field and it cleared the bases. The double was hit number four on the night for Travis and a total of five RBI's. The score was 8-4 Whitecaps headed to the ninth. That was the final.

The Captains sent RHP Luis Dejesus to the mound to start the ballgame. Dejesus (0-2) pitched five innings, allowed five hits, six runs, five earned runs, three walks, and three strikeouts. He took the loss. Francisco Valera pitched two innings of shutout baseball allowing just two hits and one walk. Valera fanned three. Felix Sterling pitched one inning, and allowed one hit, two runs, one was earned, and had one strikeout.

West Michigan started the RHP Yourfrank Lopez. Lopez (2-0), got the win. He pitched five innings and scattered seven hits. Lopez allowed four runs but only three were earned. Lopez walked one and struck out three. The bullpen for the West Michigan pitched four shut out innings of relief.

The Captains and Whitecaps will play game two of a  three game series on Tuesday afternoon. Lake County will send the LHP Ryan Merritt (1-2, 1.80) to the hill to square off against RHP Endry Briceno (0-1, 6.00) for West Michigan. First pitch is at Noon.

Individual game tickets for all Captains games, may be purchased at the Captains official website www.CaptainsBaseball.com.