Fort Wayne Spoils Boyd’s Big Night, Beats Cubs 3-2

Fort Wayne, IN - After being shut down all game by South Bend pitching, the Fort Wayne TinCaps had their bats come alive for a late comeback in the bottom of the 8th inning on Saturday night at Parkview Field. Fort Wayne scored all of its runs in the inning, swiping away the win to hand South Bend its first second-half loss. The night started strong for the Cubs, with Chicago Cubs lefty and 2025 MLB All-Star Matthew Boyd making a rehab start with the team.

Boyd matched up against Fort Wayne starter Abraham Parra. After Parra allowed a lead-off single to start the game to Kane Kepley, he induced a double-play ball to help get out of the frame unscathed.

That’s when Boyd took the Parkview Field mound. He came in with one career start in the TinCaps ballpark, back on August 5, 2013 in his time pitching with the Lansing Lugnuts. Then a Toronto Blue Jays farmhand, Boyd pitched against the South Bend Silver Hawks in Downtown South Bend on August 1, 2013.

Boyd allowed a pair of singles in the 1st inning, but in the only inning where Fort Wayne threatened to score against the lefty, Boyd picked-off Kasen Wells at first base. He then picked up his first strike out, getting Alex McCoy swinging to end the inning.

After an error was made to start the bottom of the 2nd, Boyd punched out three in a row to end the inning. In the 3rd, the southpaw faced the minimum with a strikeout in a 1-2-3 frame. And in the 4th, he punched out two more to finish with seven on the day. Boyd threw 59 pitches with 40 strikes.

It remained a scoreless game when Boyd left, and Nazier Mulé was the first man out of the Cubs bullpen. Mulé kept the game in a shutout, and Fort Wayne’s starter Parra tossed five shutout frames to begin his outing.

It was the 6th inning where South Bend finally got to Parra. Kepley picked up his third hit of the game to start the inning, and Ty Southisene immediately knocked him in via an RBI triple. It was Southisene’s fourth RBI in the last two games.

Up 2-0, Mulé protected the lead, and fired his third consecutive scoreless inning in the bottom of the 7th.

In the 8th, Alfredo Romero entered out of the Cubs bullpen. Fort Wayne smacked consecutive singles to start the inning, before getting a game-tying two-run single from Wells, and then a go-ahead RBI single from Lamar King Jr. In a flash, the TinCaps took the lead, and had the Cubs down to their final three outs.

South Bend then had to match-up with Fort Wayne closer Clay Edmondson; One of the only riddles South Bend has yet to solve this year. Closing down the save, Edmondson now has worked 8.1 consecutive shutout innings against South Bend this season, and has four saves versus the Cubs alone.

The loss drops the first-half West Division champion Cubs to a 1-1 second-half mark. South Bend can settle for a full six-game series split with a victory on Sunday afternoon in Fort Wayne when the teams meet again at 1:05 PM. If the Cubs win Sunday, they would take two of three games from the TinCaps to begin the second-half.