Sierra's Inside the Park Homer Not Enough
Appleton, WI - The Peoria Chiefs rallied to tie the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers on a ninth inning inside-the-park-home run but ultimately lost 8-7 in 10 innings on Monday night. The loss drops the Chiefs to 26-30-1 in the second half and 66-60-1 overall.
The Chiefs jumped out to an early lead as Brian O'Keefe hit his 12th home run of the season in the top of the second for a 1-0 lead. Wisconsin answered in the bottom of the inning as Lucas Erceg tied the game with a solo home run off Jake Woodford. Monte Harrison walked, Juan Ortiz singled and Max McDowell gave the Rattlers a 2-1 lead with a single. Ortiz scored on a groundout and two batters later Luis Aviles put the Rattlers on top 4-1 with an infield single.
The Chiefs responded in the third against Jordan Desguin. Jose Martinez doubled to right to start the inning and he scored on a single to right by Eli Alvarez. Alvarez took second on the throw home, stole third and scored on a wild pitch to cut the Rattlers lead to 4-3.
Wisconsin built their lead back up over the middle innings. Trent Clark doubled home two to knock Woodford from the game with two outs in the fourth innings. Erceg tripled off Bob Wheatley in the fifth inning and scored on a dribbler down the third base line from Harrison for a 7-3 lead.
The Chiefs started the comeback in the seventh against Miguel Sanchez. Magneuris Sierra tripled with one out and Martinez brought him home with a sacrifice fly. An inning later the Chiefs got a single from Jose Godoy and a triple from RJ Dennard cut the Rattlers lead to 7-5.
Wisconsin brought Scott Grist into the game in the ninth inning and Craig Aikin knocked a hustle double into center in front of a sliding Harrison. Sierra launched a ball off the center field wall that bounced onto the warning track in left-center. The Chiefs leadoff man never slowed down as he circled the bases in just over 15 seconds for an inside-the-park-home run to tie the game 7-7.
Neither team scored in their next at-bat and Tyler Bray, who threw two scoreless innings, came back out for the 10th. With one out, Jake Gatewood pushed a hit past the shift and hustled to second for a double. The Chiefs intentionally walked Erceg and Harrison was retired on a weak grounder for the second out. Juan Ortiz, who entered the game batting .148, stepped up and delivered a walk off single to left for the 8-7 Rattlers win.
Woodford allowed six runs on seven hits over 3 2/3 innings. He struck out seven and walked two. Wheatley allowed one run on three hits over 2 1/3 innings while striking out one. Davis Ward allowed one hit and struck out two over one shutout inning. Bray (3-4) took the loss as he allowed one run on two hits and one walk while striking out five over 2 2/3 innings.
Notes…The Chiefs are 0-4 on the roadtrip…Sierra's inside-the-park-home-run is the first for the Chiefs since the return of the Cardinals affiliation to Peoria in 2013…The Chiefs are 6-9-1 in a MWL leading 16 extra-inning games, two shy of the franchise record…Peoria is 41-19-1 when scoring first this season…The Chiefs are 23-18 in one run games bug have lost three in a row on this roadtrip…Peoria is 40-6-1 when scoring at least five runs…The Chiefs are 6-14 in the first game of a road series…The Chiefs have lost 16 games in the opponents final at-bat…Peoria has walked 14 batters intentionally this season, second most in the MWL…Sierra leads the Chiefs with 43 multi-hit games and he has 12 multi-RBI games…Alvarez has 33 multi-hit games…Alvarez has five steals on this roadtrip and leads the Chiefs with 31 steals…His 31 steals are tied for second in the MWL, four behind the leader, and he is the 25th player in team history with at least 30 steals in a season…Godoy has 21 multi-hit games…Erceg has two homers off Woodford in the last month…Torres is the third Chiefs player to strike out at least four times in a game this season…The Chiefs tied a season high from April 10 with seven extra-base hits and tied a season high with two home runs…Peoria was 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and they are 4-for-36 (.111) on the road trip…The Chiefs are batting .205 with the bases loaded this season…The lowest team mark since 2004 is a .231 average in 2012…Bray has pitched for the Chiefs 68 times in his career, ninth most in team history…Game two of the series is at 12:05 p.m. Tuesday with Dailyn Martinez (4-5, 5.58) against Rattlers RHP Corbin Burnes (3-0, 2.45)…The broadcast can be heard, starting with the Pre-Game Show at 11:50 a.m. on www.peoriachiefs.com/listenlive which also has downloads for a free app on the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android…The broadcast is also available on the Peoria Chiefs Network in the Tune-In Radio App.