Paxton quiets Quad Cities with 13 K's

James Paxton has only made nine starts this season, but he is quickly taking his place among the Midwest League's strikeout leaders.

The Clinton left-hander fanned a career-high 13 batters over 6 1/3 innings Thursday as the Class A LumberKings cruised past the visiting Quad Cities River Bandits, 5-1.

Paxton, a fourth-round pick out of the University of Kentucky in 2010, did not make his pro debut until joining the LumberKings on April 27. After earning the win Thursday, he has posted a 3-3 record with a 2.70 ERA and 73 strikeouts in 50 innings. His 73 K's tie him for the Mariners organizational lead with High Desert's Forrest Snow and Brandon Maurer, who have pitched 19 2/3 and 20 2/3 more innings respectively. Paxton ranks seventh in the Midwest League, despite having thrown fewer frames than anyone in the top 25.

He opened Thursday's contest by striking out six of the first seven batters he faced and did not allow a hit until Geoffrey Klein, Michael Swinson and Ronny Gil collected consecutive singles for the River Bandits with two outs in the third. Paxton limited the damage to one run by striking out Oscar Taveras to end the inning.

The 22-year-old yielded just one hit over the next three frames -- a single to Taveras -- before running into trouble in the seventh.

After striking out Quad Cities catcher Cody Stanley for the third time to open the inning, Paxton walked Nicholas Longmire. Victor Sanchez reached on a fielding error by Clinton third baseman Matt Browning and Jonathan Rodriguez drew a walk to load the bases. That ended Paxton's night after a career-high 6 1/3 frames.

Right-hander Tyler Burgoon entered the game in a bases-loaded situation and promptly induced an inning-ending double play, leaving Paxton charged with one run on four hits and a pair of walks.

Burgoon closed out the game for his seventh save, allowing one hit over 2 1/3 scoreless innings to break a string of four straight appearances in which he had surrendered a run.

Clinton collected just six hits as a team, but took advantage of five River Bandits errors to score its five runs. The LumberKings crossed the plate twice in the first, despite their only hit being a leadoff single -- three Quad Cities throwing errors and two hit batsmen helped push the runs across.

The 'Kings used three singles and a walk to score a pair of earned runs in the fourth, then added an unearned insurance run in the eighth.

Browning went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI and designated hitter Mickey Wiswall singled and drove in two runs to help Clinton snap a five-game losing streak.

Quad Cities' five hits -- all singles -- came from five different batters. Six different River Bandits struck out at least twice.

Starter Trevor Rosenthal fell to 3-7 after yielding four runs -- two earned -- on five hits over six innings. He struck out seven and walked two as the River Bandits lost to the LumberKings for the first time in six games this season.