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Bandits and Chiefs Split Saturday Twin Bill

(Rich Guill)
May 27, 2018

The Quad Cities River Bandits split a doubleheader against the Peoria Chiefs on Saturday evening at Modern Woodmen Park. The River Bandits won the opener by a 12-0 score, but dropped the nightcap 5-1 in eight innings. The Bandits closed the night in a first-place tie with the Clinton Lumberkings

The Quad Cities River Bandits split a doubleheader against the Peoria Chiefs on Saturday evening at Modern Woodmen Park. The River Bandits won the opener by a 12-0 score, but dropped the nightcap 5-1 in eight innings. The Bandits closed the night in a first-place tie with the Clinton Lumberkings atop the Western Division.
The River Bandits pounced on Peoria in the very first inning of the day to take a big lead in game one. The inning began with a line drive to third off the bat of Jake Meyers for an out, but the next seven hitters reached base safely. Miguelangel Sierra ripped a two-RBI double off of the left field wall to get the scoring started. Two batters later, Michael Papierski drove in a run with base hit into left to make it 3-0. With the bases loaded, Bryan De La Cruz split the gap in left center to score all three runners and double the lead to 6-0.
Sierra struck again, doing more damage to the Chiefs in the second inning. Arauz led off with a single and was thrown out trying to advance to third base on another base hit from Corey Julks. That brought Sierra to the plate for the second time. In this instance, he turned on a pitch and hammered it out of the park and onto the berm beyond the wall in left field. The two-run home run pushed the margin to 8-0.

Four consecutive one-out hits helped the Bandits strike for more in the third. De La Cruz started the rally by working a walk and then raced to third on Jonathan Lacroix's double down the right field line. Jake Meyers dumped a single into shallow center to score De La Cruz. The next hitter, Arauz, cranked a line drive off of the wall in right field. Lacroix scored on the hit, but Arauz was thrown out at second base trying to stretch it to a double while Meyers also raced home to give the River Bandits an 11-0 advantage.
The final damage was done by the Bandits in the sixth. Sierra recorded his third hit with a two-out single to reach base in front of Jake Adams. Adams smacked a double off the wall in left field to score Sierra and increase the cushion to 12-0.
Yohan Ramirez, the starter, worked 6.0 shutout innings for the River Bandits to secure his fourth win of the season. He struck out four, allowed only two hits and walked one. Dariel Aquino finished the game by striking out the side in the seventh. The shutout was the fifth of the year for the pitching staff.
Both Arauz and Sierra came through with three hits. Sierra drove in four runs and scored three of his own. The team set a new single-game season-high with 15 hits. Eight of the nine players in the lineup finished with at least one hit and all nine reached base safely.
The second game had a much different feel with pitching dominating from the start. Neither team could score in the seven scheduled innings so the game moved to extra innings.
With a runner on second to begin the eighth, the Chiefs had four consecutive batters reach safely. With the bases loaded, Nick Plummer was hit by a Luis Garcia pitch to force in the game's first run. Matt Fiedler followed with an RBI single and then Jose Martinez plated another with a groundout. Scott Hurst pushed home another with a sacrifice fly and the final damage was done by Irving Lopez with a base hit up the middle to make it 5-0.
The River Bandits managed to score one run in the bottom half as Colton Shaver raced home on a wild pitch. Meyers was responsible for all three of the team's hits in the second game.
Cristian Javier, the Bandits starter, worked 6.0 scoreless innings and allowed just one hit while striking out nine. He is currently the Midwest League's leader in strikeouts with 65 in 39.0 innings. Garcia took the loss, working the final 2.0 innings and giving uo five runs, four of the earned, on four hits.   
The series between the River Bandits (27-22) and Chiefs (25-22) resumes on Sunday evening at 5:15 p.m. The River Bandits give the ball to LHP Parker Mushinski (1-0, 1.34) with Peoria RHP Alvara Seijas (1-2, 4.93) opposing him.
All River Bandits games are broadcast on 1170 K-BOB and TuneIn Radio. Home games are also available with video on MiLB.TV.