Mud Hens take both games in doubleheader against Storm Chasers
Game One: TOLEDO, OH - The Toledo Mud Hens put up a crooked number early against the Omaha Storm Chasers, leading to a 3-1 victory. Toledo’s pitching staff combined for ten strikeouts and left eight Storm Chasers stranded on base. With a shortened game, Toledo opted to go with Bailey
Game One:
TOLEDO, OH - The Toledo Mud Hens put up a crooked number early against the Omaha Storm Chasers, leading to a 3-1 victory. Toledo’s pitching staff combined for ten strikeouts and left eight Storm Chasers stranded on base.
With a shortened game, Toledo opted to go with Bailey Horn as an opener for game one of their doubleheader. Horn would leave things scoreless through two innings of activity and picked up four strikeouts, before Matt Manning took over in the third inning.
The Mud Hens’ offense started to find its stride in the third inning. Back-to-back singles from Brian Serven and Riley Unroe opened the bottom of the inning. Ryan Hendrix struggled to find command over his off-speed pitches, leading to Brewer Hicklen taking a pitch on the elbow to load the bases.
Following an Andrew Navigato strikeout, Bligh Madris would look to give his team the lead. He did just that with a bases-clearing double that rolled down the left-field line to put Toledo up 3-0 early.
Manning would allow the Storm Chasers to get two baserunners aboard in both the fourth and fifth inning, but quickly shut things down from there. In the fifth inning, Manning and Serven were experiencing issues with their Pitch-Comm devices. The two went back to old-school hand signals and closed the inning with a strikeout on Luke Maile.
In their half of the sixth, Omaha looked to chip away at Toledo’s 3-0 lead. Bedford High School alum Joey Wiemer found himself at the plate with runners at first and second when he hit a grounder to Hao-Yu Lee at third. Wiemer would be safe at first and Tyler Gentry would score as Lee lost the ball on his transition from glove to hand.
The Chasers wanted to do even more damage from there, but Nick Pratto hit into a three, six, one double play to close the inning. Pratto disagreed with his being called out at first base and made that known to first-base umpire Ty Krauss. Krauss quickly tossed Pratto as the Hens went to the dugout for the bottom of the inning.
Needing just three outs to close the first game of the doubleheader, the Hens gave the ball to Andrew Chafin. He would give up a double to Nick Gordon on his first pitch, but Chaffin forced three-straight outs from there to give Toledo the 3-1 win.
Notables:
- Bailey Horn (2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K)
- Bligh Madris (1-3, 2B, 3 RBI, 1 K)
Game Two:
The Toledo Mud Hens stuck to a similar formula to game one in order to defeat the Omaha Storm Chasers 4-1 in game two. The Hens took an early lead and later tacked on a few more runs to keep themselves ahead of the Chasers.
For the second game of the day, Toledo would go with Friday’s scheduled starter Lael Lockhart. In his last start against the Indianapolis Indians, Lockhart only allowed one run and picked up five strikeouts in five innings of action.
The MVP of the game prior, Bligh Madris, continued to have a day. In the second inning, he took Anthony Simonelli deep to give the Hens an early 1-0 lead. While that would only be Madris’s second home run of the season, it would go down as his sixteenth RBI.
Lockhart ran into some trouble in the fourth inning as Nelson Velazquez hit a lead-off triple. From there, Lockhart caught the next two batters chasing his curveball. After a lengthy at bat against Nick Gordon ending in a walk, Lockhart was pulled in favor of Ricky Vanasco who forced a lineout to close the inning unscathed.
After fighting off Omaha, Toledo looked to do some damage in their half of the fourth. A Madris walk and a Jahmai Jones single put the Hens in scoring position and brought Riley Unroe to the plate. Unroe quickly gave Toledo a 2-0 lead as his base hit to right field brought Madris home.
The Mud Hens continued to give themselves some breathing room as Carlos Mendoza followed up Unroe’s base hit with one of his own. This particular swing of the bat would bring in both Jones and Unroe to put Toledo ahead 4-0.
Vanasco then followed his offense’s performance with one of his own, taking the Storm Chasers down in order.
Come around to the sixth inning, Omaha still looked to battle back from their four-run deficit. Brendan White got off to a shaky start from the mound as he gave up a double to Tyler Gentry. White then picked up a strikeout before he clipped Joey Wiemer with his first pitch of the at bat. Nick Pratto was then able to bring Gentry in with a base hit to right field, cutting the Toledo lead 4-1.
Unable to expand their lead in the bottom of the sixth, the Mud Hens handed the closing duties to Ryan Miller. He would sit the Storm Chasers down in order to earn his first save of the season.
The Mud Hens will look to complete a series sweep against the Storm Chasers on Sunday at 2:05 p.m.
Notables:
- Bligh Madris (1-1, HR, RBI, 2 R, 2 BB)
- Carlos Mendoza (2-2, 2B, 2 RBI)
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