Captains Wins Fifth Straight, Behind Signature Mace Start

(EASTLAKE, OH) - The Lake County Captains (67-48) combine an explosive offensive night with a dominant pitching performance to take down the Cedar Rapids Kernels (68-49) 8-4 on a cloudy Thursday night at Classic Park.

With West Michigan losing tonight, Lake County jumps out to a three-game lead in the Midwest League East second-half standings.

Aaron Bracho started the scoring tonight in the third inning when he made an aggressive sprint towards home on a ball hit to Kernel’s second baseman Mikey Perez, who was playing at the cut of the infield grass. Perez came to the plate, but the throw was off the plate and allowed the Captains to take a 1-0 lead.

Lake County continued the scoring when Joe Naranjo and Alexfri Planez hit RBI singles in the subsequent two plate appearances putting Lake County in front 3-0.

In the fifth inning, it would be Petey Halpin driving in another run for Lake County with another RBI Single. Planez would later come around to score on a bases-loaded walk, and the Captains would extend their lead 5-0.

Lake County would take on three more runs in the sixth inning. It started with an RBI single from Milan Tolentino. Then, later in the inning, Petey Halpin would hit a soft grounder allowing a run to come across the plate, even though the 2020 third-round pick was retired. Finally, the inning was capped off with Connor Kokx hustling out of the box for an RBI triple.

Meanwhile, Tommy Mace was dominant on the mound. The 2021 second-round pick went for his season high in innings. It was two runs on three hits through seven innings. The only runs allowed from Mace came from a pole-scraping home run in his final inning.

Matt Turner pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning that set up Jack DeGroat to finish the game. Cedar Rapids would push across two final runs with another home run before finally falling to the Captains 8-4.

The fourth game of the series is tomorrow Friday, August 26th, with first pitch at 6:35 p.m. Tomorrow is Friday Night Fireworks, presented by Meijer.

Coverage of the game can be found on WJCU.org/Captains and the MiLB First Pitch app.