Peoria Rally Falls Short in 7-5 Loss on Father's Day

Peoria, IL – The Chiefs scored three times in the ninth and got the tying-run to the plate in the ninth before bowing out 7-5 at the hands of the West Michigan Whitecaps Sunday. With the loss, the Chiefs finished 6-6 over the course of their 12-game, 13-day home stand.

In the early going, both starting pitchers traded zeroes. Dionys Rodriguez, who pitched 5.1 innings in relief Tuesday, earned the starting nod Sunday. He twirled zeroes through the first two innings, only to be matched by West Michigan starter Dylan Smith.

In the third inning, West Michigan opened the scoring with a quick two-out flourish. After a walk, Eliezer Alfonso hit a two-run homer to right to push West Michigan in front, 2-0.

The lead was quickly cut in half in the bottom of the third inning when Tyler Reichenborn went deep on the first pitch he saw to make it a 2-1 ballgame. Reichenborn reached base four times Sunday to extend his on-base streak to 15 games.

West Michigan went right back to work in their half of the fourth, plating two more. A sac fly from Corey Joyce made it 3-1. Later, a fielding error by Ramon Mendoza allowed a second run to cross the plate, extending the lead to 4-1. Mendoza did save another run, however, as he threw out Ulrich Bojarski at the plate to stop a second run from crossing the plate.

In the bottom of the fifth, another notable streak was extended by a Chiefs position player. Mike Antico singled to lead off the Chiefs half of the inning and extended his hit streak to 12 games, the longest stretch by a Peoria hitter this season. After stealing second and third, he scored on an RBI groundout from Osvaldo Tovalin to make it a 4-2 ballgame.

The Whitecaps created some additional separation in the later innings. In the seventh, a bloop single from Ben Malgeri pushed the lead back to three, 5-2. Then in the eighth, Bojarski hit a two-run, opposite field homer to make it 7-2.

Trailing five entering the ninth, Peoria made things interesting. After a pair of walks put runners at first and second, a wild pitch pushed two into scoring position for Tovalin. With the count full, he laced a double into the right field corner to score Ramon Mendoza and Reichenborn and trim the deficit to 7-4. Through two starts in a Chiefs uniform, Tovalin has six RBI’s. Later, Todd Lott doubled off of West Michigan closer Elvis Alvarado to trade places with Tovalin and make it a 7-5 contest. The rally ended there, however, as a strikeout and a lineout ended the game.

Smith earned the win for West Michigan, his sixth of the year, while Rodriguez was tagged with the loss after 4.2 innings of work. After an off-day Monday, the Chiefs will kick off a 12-game road swing in South Bend on Tuesday.