Quad Cities Out-Twirls Wisconsin in Pitchers’ Duel
Davenport, Iowa – After allowing nine runs in an extra-inning loss Thursday, Quad Cities held Wisconsin to just one run on four hits on Friday, as the River Bandits defeated the Timber Rattlers 2-1 at Modern Woodmen Park. The starting pitching matchup, featuring a pair of organizational top 30 prospects,
Davenport, Iowa – After allowing nine runs in an extra-inning loss Thursday, Quad Cities held Wisconsin to just one run on four hits on Friday, as the River Bandits defeated the Timber Rattlers 2-1 at Modern Woodmen Park.
The starting pitching matchup, featuring a pair of organizational top 30 prospects, set the tone for the night early, with Bandits’ right-hander Drew Beam allowing just one run over 5.0 innings, while Rattlers’ right-hander Bishop Letson struck out eight in 5.0-scoreless frames.
Beam’s lone blemish came in the fourth, when Juan Baez plated Jadher Areinamo’s leadoff double with an RBI-single, his third in the last two ballgames.
After Letson closed out his night by retiring the final ten Bandits hitters he faced, Quad Cities quickly tied the game 1-1 against Anthony Flores in the sixth, as Carson Roccaforte stole second and third following a leadoff walk and came in to score on Sam Kulasingam’s RBI-single.
Flores then rebounded by stranding Erick Torres’s two-out double in the seventh, but succumbed to a two-out rally in the eighth after Bryan Gonzalez plated Kulasingam with a go-ahead RBI-double for his second hit of the night.
With Jesus Rios completing 2.0-scoreless innings in relief of Beam, A.J. Causey took care of both the eighth and the ninth for Quad Cities, posting his third-straight scoreless outing to secure his team’s 2-1 victory.
Canyon Brown also aided in the effort defensively, nabbing two of three would-be base-stealers over the course of the night, including the potential game-tying run, Baez, who tried to steal second in the top of the ninth.
Causey (2-0) recorded a pair of strikeouts en route to his second win of the season, while Flores (0-1) was charged with a blown save and the loss after allowing two runs in 3.0 innings of relief.
Quad Cities look to secure a split of its first homestand Saturday, as the Bandits send Hunter Patteson (0-0, 000) to the mound for his second start of the year opposite Wisconsin’s Chandler Welch. First pitch at Modern Woodmen Park is set for 5:30 p.m.