Perdomo sparkles on hill for Lugnuts

One night after watching his club surrender 17 runs in a lopsided loss, Lansing's Angel Perdomo did everything in his power to make sure it wouldn't happen again. 

The Blue Jays' No. 23 prospect gave up one hit over a career-high seven scoreless innings on Sunday before the Lugnuts dropped a 1-0 decision at South Bend, which got a walk-off homer from Cubs No. 10 prospect Eloy Jimenez.

In extending his hitting streak to a Midwest League season-high 16 games, Jimenez overshadowed a sterling duel between Perdomo and No. 23 Cubs prospect Connor Sands.

Perdomo surrendered his only hit in the opening inning as Daniel Spingola reached on a two-out infield single. He issued three walks and hit a batter, throwing 57 of 96 pitches for strikes. The 22-year-old right-hander has yielded one earned run over his last 20 innings to drop his ERA to 1.45, and his .142 opponents' batting average is the lowest in the Minor Leagues.

"A very good, positive outing, first and foremost," Blue Jays pitching coordinator Sal Fasano said. "He had a nice balance of pitches and continues to work on his off-speed stuff, making a commitment to execute the plan during the game. He's got great deception in his delivery which helps make his fastball look that much harder.

"It's nice to see him put a plan together and go out and do it. His deception, his high fastballs, it allows him to get away with some pitches. So we just want to continue to take his best attributes and make them better and better."

Despite his gaudy numbers, the native of the Dominican Republic native still has inconsistencies on the mound, an area in which Fasano wants to see improvement.

"The biggest thing with him is repeating his delivery," he said. "He's making quality pitches -- or pitches in the zone where he wants them -- around 70 percent of the time. But he still falls off to the third-base side of the mound, although not as bad. It's a work in progress, but he's making some big strides. When he starts repeating his delivery with more consistency and starts executing pitchers at a higher rate, he'll move quickly. He has the ability to have a pretty good slider, so hopefully, we can work on that and master it. But the development of his off-speed pitches still has a ways to go."

While Perdomo had little trouble with the Cubs, Sands was shutting down the Lugnuts. The 21-year-old left-hander allowed three hits and four walks while striking out five in six innings, less than 24 hours after South Bend rolled to a 17-3 win.

"Oh, sure," Fasano said, "it's way better watching a 1-0 game than a 17-3 game. It really is a pleasure to watch and see guys in tight situations executing when they need to. It's the greatest gift a coordinator can get from these guys."

Neither team threatened after the starters exited until Jimenez sent a 1-0 pitch from reliever Starlyn Suriel (1-1) over the left field wall for his eighth homer of the season and sixth in 11 games. The blast extended his RBI streak to eight games and made a winner of Scott Effross (3-0), who struck out one in a perfect inning.