Early Homers, Fleming, Lead Bandits to Win

Davenport, Iowa – The Quad Cities River Bandits smacked a pair of first-inning homers and got 6.0 innings of scoreless pitching from William Fleming to top the Peoria Chiefs 6-2 on Thursday night at Modern Woodmen Park.

Two pitches into their first at-bats in the bottom of the first, the River Bandits found themselves in front 1-0 against Chiefs’ starter Wilfredo Pereira on a solo homer from Peyton Wilson, Quad Cities’ first leadoff bomb of the season.

Just four batters later, after Darryl Collins reached on an error and Juan Carlos Negret worked a walk, Dillan Shrum left the yard for the second time in as many games with a three-run shot.

The 4-0 lead would be more than enough for Fleming, who never faced more than four batters in any inning and only allowed three total base runners and struck out three en route to his second quality start of the season.

Although Pereira rebounded to keep Quad Cities off the board for his next four innings of work, Q.C. chased him from the game in the sixth, scoring a run on a wild pitch and an RBI single from Saul Garza as part of the designated hitter’s two-knock performance.

After Fleming’s start, Chazz Martinez tossed a scoreless outing of his own, striking out a pair of Chiefs in the seventh before Patrick Halligan took over in the eighth. The right-hander would record the first out of the inning, but after exiting the game midway through Noah Mendlinger’s at-bat, gave way to Caden Monke, who allowed the Chiefs’ first run on an RBI groundout.

Peoria struck again against Monke in the ninth on Patrick Romeri’s RBI double to make it 6-2 and even loaded the bases to bring the tying run to the plate, but Anderson Paulino (2) would come on and retire the only two men he faced for a two-out save.

Fleming’s (3-4) performance earned the right-hander his third win as a River Bandit, while Pereira (6-7) took the loss for Peoria, allowing six runs, five earned, in 5.2 innings.

Levi Prater worked 2.1 scoreless in relief for the Chiefs to help close out the game.

The River Bandits will look to secure a split of their season’s final series tomorrow night at Modern Woodmen Park, as Rylan Kaufman (1-7, 5.30) will get the start against the Chiefs’ Zane Mills (4-6, 3.88). First pitch is scheduled for 6:30pm.