Rattlers Finish Lansing 8-3 to Wrap Suspended Game

LANSING, MI - The wait was worth it for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and for Reese Olson. The Rattlers defeated the Lansing Lugnuts 8-3 on Wednesday night at Cooley Law School Stadium in the conclusion of a game that was suspended on Tuesday night. Olson earned his first professional victory with five innings of solid relief.
The Timber Rattlers (11-12) had a 6-0 lead in the top of the third inning when rain halted play on Tuesday night.

Wisconsin went in front in the top of the second on Tuesday. David Fry doubled to start the inning. Chad McClanahan followed with a single to drive in Fry. Later in the inning, Antonio Piñero drove in McClanahan with a single for a 2-0 lead.

The Rattlers bats got hotter as the rain fell harder in the top of the third inning. Yeison Coca and Fry both drew walks with one out. Gabriel García doubled Wisconsin's lead with a line-drive double over the head of the left fielder to drive in both runners. Jesús Lujano drove in García with a single and LG Castillo extended the lead to 6-0 with an RBI double.

When the game resumed, the Lugnuts (11-13) pounced on Olson for two quick runs in the bottom of the third. Dom Abbadessa doubled to start the inning. Olson walked Reggie Pruitt to put two runners on base. The next batter hit a hard grounder that looked like would be turned into a double play, but an error by Brice Turang allowed Abbadessa to score and Pruitt to take third. Otto Lopez would drive in Pruitt home and the Wisconsin lead was down to four runs. Lujano kept the inning from getting out of hand with a great diving catch for the final out of the inning to strand two runners.

McClanahan got one of those runs back with one swing of the bat in the top of the fifth. The Wisconsin designated hitter lined a lead-off home run to right. McClanahan's first homer of the season pushed Wisconsin's lead out to 7-2.
Olson found his groove after the rough restart and worked a scoreless fourth and fifth inning. Ryan Gold tripled to start the sixth for the Lugnuts, but Olson minimized the damage. Gold scored on a grounder off the bat of Jake Brodt and Olson retired the next two batters without incident in the sixth and pitched a 1-2-3 seventh to keep the Rattlers up 7-3. 

Olson allowed two hits and two walks while striking out three over his five innings of relief to pick up that first pro win.
The combination of Fry and McClanahan got Wisconsin one more run in the top of the ninth. Fry reached on a two-out error and stole second. McClanahan drove in his third run of the game with a single to left-center.

Wisconsin second baseman Brice Turang went 0-for-4 with a walk to see his hitting streak come to an end at thirteen games. In a statistical quirk, the hitting streak will become 14 games when Wisconsin's suspended game with Beloit is concluded on June 7. Turang had a hit in that game, but the stats will not be counted in the totals until the game is concluded.

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