Quad Cities Bested by Captains in Wire-to-Wire Defeat

Eastlake, Ohio – The Quad Cities River Bandits suffered their largest loss of the season Thursday, as they fell to the Lake County Captains 9-1 at Classic Auto Group Park.

The loss, just the River Bandits’ fourth on the road this season, saw Lake County pull ahead early on Ralphy Velazquez’s two-out double in the first inning. Quad Cities’ starter, Logan Martin, rebounded with a scoreless second, but did not make it out of the third, as the Captains struck for three more doubles as part of a four-run frame.

Back-to-back RBI two-baggers from Alfonsin Rosario and, again, Velazquez put Lake County in the lead and 3-0 and knocked Martin out of the game. Wuilfredo Antunez then took advantage of a pair of Carter Frederick errors and drove in a run with an RBI-single against Bandits’ reliever Mauricio Veliz. One batter later, Jacob Cozart scored on Canyon Brown’s passed ball and pushed Lake County ahead 5-0.

Veliz was the bright spot for Quad Cities’ pitching staff, as the right-hander helped Martin finish off the third allowing just one unearned run, before scorelessly eating up the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings—at point retiring 10-straight Lake County batters.

While the Bandits’ bats failed to muster a rally over Captains’ starter Josh Hartle’s 5.0-scoreless innings, Lake County struck for another four-run frame in the seventh against newly entered Bandits’ reliever Tommy Molsky. After the right-hander allowed three-straight Captains to reach to open the inning, Velazquez capped off his three-hit, five-RBI night by emptying the bases with a three-run triple. Cozart then extended Quad Cities’ deficit to 9-0 with an RBI-single.

After Captains’ reliever Yorman Gomez blanked the Bandits from the sixth to eighth innings, the Bandits avoided their second shutout loss of the season in the ninth thanks to Sam Kulasingam, who brought in Daniel Vazquez on a ground ball and reached on an error.

The second baseman finished the night 3-for-4 with an RBI and three singles, accounting for half of the Bandits’ six hits.

Hartle (2-1) earned the win for Lake County, completing his longest scoreless start of the season. Martin’s (3-2) start wound up his shortest of the year and resulted in his second loss after surrendering four runs on four hits and two walks over 2.1 innings.

Gomez (2) was credited with his second-straight 4.0-inning save in the piggyback start and struck out a season-high seven.

Quad Cities returns to Classic Auto Group Park for game four of the series Friday and sends the reigning Midwest League Pitcher of the Month Frank Mozzicato (1-0, 1.42) to the bump opposite Lake County’s Matt Wilkerson (0-3, 4.13). First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. ET.