Eighth Inning Homers Push Bandits to 4-2 Win

The Quad Cities River Bandits used a pair of big home runs in the eighth inning to take a 4-2 decision from the Burlington Bees on Monday night at Modern Woodmen Park. Four pitchers also combined for 17 strikeouts in the series finale. The Bandits struck out 64 Burlington hitters in the 36.0 innings that made up the series.
Burlington scored the first run of the game in the second inning against Bandits starter Jairo Solis. Spencer Griffin started the inning with a triple and scored shortly after on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Keinner Piña. Griffin tagged from third and scored to give the Bees a 1-0 lead.
The Bandits finally pushed a run across in the fifth inning after coming up empty with the bases loaded in both the third and fourth innings. Alfredo Angarita opened with a single and was pushed to second base when Ruben Castro was hit by a pitch. Logan Mattix loaded the bases by drawing a walk with one out. After Colton Shaver struck out, Jonathan Lacroix worked another free pass to force in a run and even the score.

The game remained tied until the bottom of the eighth. Scott Schreiber singled with one out to reach base for Michael Papierski. The catcher turned on a pitch and cranked his third home run of the year over the right field wall to put the Bandits in front 3-1. Two batters later, Seth Beer connected on his first home run in a River Bandits uniform to extend the lead to 4-1. The long ball cleared the leaping left fielder Torii Hunter Jr. Jr. and dropped on the berm for a solo blast.
Before the ninth inning could get started, fire alarms sounded throughout the ballpark and the stadium was evacuated. After a 25-minute delay, the game resumed. Connor Fitzsimons hit a solo home run off of Tanner Duncan to close the gap to 4-2, but Duncan rebounded to retire the next two hitters and end the game.
The Bandits tallied nine hits in the contest. Angarita paced the team with three and Schreiber added a pair.
Solis lasted 1.2 innings and allowed one run on two hits with three walks and three strikeouts. Willy Collado followed with 3.1 scoreless innings during which he allowed only one hit and struck out nine. Carlos Sanabria tossed 2.0 scoreless frames with three strikeouts.
The River Bandits (9-9, 49-39) will take Tuesday off before opening a road trip at Fifth Third Field in Dayton on Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. RHP Enoli Paredes (2-3, 1.50) will take the ball in the opening game against Dayton RHP Adrian Rodriguez (4-4, 7.17).
All River Bandits games are broadcast on 1170 K-BOB and TuneIn Radio. Home games are also available with video on MiLB.TV.