Toledo struggles at the plate, leading to 4-3 loss

Following up their back-and-forth battle with the Indianapolis Indians last night, the Mud Hens would fall short 4-3 in game two of the series. All three of the Hens’ runs would go down in the books as unearned as the team struggled at the plate.

Devin Sweet started strong on the mound, going one, two, three to open the game. On the contrary, Indianapolis’ Eric Lauer did not have quite a strong start on the mound, walking his first two batters faced. His teammates would give him some help though, keeping it a scoreless first inning.

In the second, the Hens kept it scoreless. Buddy Kennedy calmly took care of two ground balls hit his way and Sweet picked up his third strikeout of the day. Sweet kept up his stellar start with a third straight inning without allowing a base runner.

With both teams still hitless, Drew Anderson would take Sweet’s spot on the rubber. Sweet would finish with four strikeouts in three innings pitched. Indianapolis got their first base runner of the day when Billy McKinney had a hard-hit ground ball to second base. Liover Peguero followed that up with a hard-hit grounder of his own. Jake Lamb hit a flyball that Ryan Vilade couldn’t quite get to in time, but the Hens would easily get McKinney out at third. The Indians would not be able to make anything happen with their base runners, keeping the game scoreless.

With Keston Hiura on first and two outs, Indianapolis brought out Kyle Nicolas to replace Lauer. Toledo would make a pitching change of their own to open the fifth, bringing out Mason Englert.

Englert would quickly find himself with bases loaded. Just as quickly as he had loaded the bases, Englert escaped the jam. Three straight strikeouts kept things scoreless midway through the fifth inning.

In the top of the sixth, Englert came back out to the mound but would be replaced with Adam Wolf after one out and then back-to-back singles. Andrew Navigato would make the play off of a Joshua Palacios ground ball, but not before both base runners could advance. Wolf would then walk Gilberto Celestino, loading the bases. Drawing a walk, Carter Bins would bring in Lamb for the first run of the game. Matt Gorski then hit a single right to Jace Jung, but after bobbling the ball Malcom Nunez would score before Toledo could make the play at home.

In the bottom of the sixth, down 2-0, the Mud Hens would finally get their first hit of the night. Justice Bigbie got things started with a double off the wall. He would then score off of a wild pitch from Wily Peralta. Peralta would throw another wild pitch, prompting Bligh Madris to run, but he would be tagged out by catcher Carter Bins.

Only up by one, Indianapolis started the seventh inning off with a double from Nick Gonzalez. Wolf would two draw two outs, but before he could end the inning Lamb would hit a well-placed grounder to bring in Gonzalez. Wolf would then close the inning with another routine grounder for Navigato to scoop up.

The top of the eighth would be Buddy Kennedy and Keston Hiura’s inning. All three batters would hit routine grounders right to Kennedy for a quick one, two, three inning. In the bottom of the inning things would change for the Hens. A Jung walk and a Hiura single put two base runners on for Bigbie. Bigbie then hit a hard ground ball to second baseman Gonzalez who threw the ball away, allowing two runs.

Tied 3-3, Toledo brought Trey Wingenter to the mound to try and close out the game. Wingenter would give up a double to Gonzalez. McKinney would bring him in with an RBI single to take the 4-3 lead. Navigato would end the top of the ninth with a routine grounder, keeping the Mud Hens rally-win within reach.

Toledo tried their best to take back the lead with big swing after big swing, but after a pop-up, a strikeout, and another pop-up the game was over.

The Hens are home once again Thursday at 6:35 against the Indians. With the series tied 1-1, there is still a lot of baseball to be played.

Notables:

Justice Bigbie 2-4, 1 R, 2B

Devin Sweet 3.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 K