TinCaps Score Season-High 14 in Win
Fort Wayne (23-24) has now won four games in a row, tying a season high for consecutive wins. Perry (0-1) made his first ever Midwest League start on Thursday, and the TinCaps jumped on him right from the beginning. Donavan Tate and Travis Whitmore hit back-to-back one-out first inning singles, and Mike Gallic then walked to load the bases. Lee Orr used a sacrifice fly to score Tate and make it 1-0 Fort Wayne. Yeison Asencio walked, loading the bases for a second time. Hedges, the seventh batter of the inning, then delivered a grand slam to left field and made it 5-0 TinCaps.
The other grand slam this year for Hedges also came against South Bend. The catcher blasted a home run with the bases loaded on April 10th against South Bend's J.R. Bradley in an 8-1 Fort Wayne victory.
Three more TinCaps runs scored in the second inning. Second baseman Tyler Stubblefield led off and reached on an error by third baseman Matt Helm. Two walks later, Perry's night was done. On the second walk, ball four was a wild pitch and Stubblefield trotted home to score. Perry was replaced by lefty Keith Hessler. The southpaw allowed RBI singles to Whitmore and Gallic, and Fort Wayne led 8-0 after an inning and a half.
South Bend (24-23) answered with two runs in the second, and three more in the fourth against Frank Garces , making the score 8-5 TinCaps. Garces' night was done after four innings, and Yordany Ramirez picked up from there. In the sixth, Fort Wayne added to the advantage with an RBI single from Mike Gallic, and a two-run home run from Lee Orr. It was the second home run in as many days for Orr, and his fourth in ten games with the TinCaps. Following that frame, the score was 11-5.
Tate plated two more with a two-run double in the seventh, pushing the advantage to 13-5. The Silver Hawks pushed across a run in the seventh against Fort Wayne reliever Luis De La Cruz, climbing to within seven at 13-6. Kyle Gaedele added the final run of the night for Fort Wayne with an RBI single in the eighth.
In the ninth, Johnny Barbato allowed two runs on a double by Roidany Aguila, setting the final margin at 14-8. Thursday's game marked the most runs the TinCaps have scored in a single game in 2012. The team had previously scored 12 runs on two separate occasions.
Friday's series finale presents a chance for the TinCaps to earn their first series sweep of the season. Adys Portillo and Archie Bradley are the scheduled starters in a game slated to get underway at 7:35 PM.