Lake Erie Crushers News & Game Recaps

Crushers Falter in the Fifth

Lake Erie surrenders five runs in the fifth in loss to Otters

Box Link: https://frontierleague.com/sports/bsb/2022-23/boxscores/20230727_iw9s.xml

AVON, Ohio — The Lake Erie Crushers came up short in their second attempt to sweep the Evansville Otters this season, as they were haunted by a five run fifth inning in a 10-2 loss to the Otters on Thursday night at Mercy Health Stadium.

Despite the loss, the Crushers (27-36) still finished the season with a winning record (6-3) against the Otters (35-27) for the first time since 2016.

Evansville fired the first shot, scoring the game’s first run in the top of the first inning. Back-to-back walks were issued to Kona Quiggle and Jeffrey Baez before Dakota Phillips ripped a RBI double to right center.

Phillips struck again for the Otters in the top of the third. Baez worked his second walk of the night with two out in the inning and he came around to score on Phillips’s second two bagger of the contest, this one off the wall in right field to give the Otters a 2-0 lead.

Lake Erie came back to tie it at 2-2 in the bottom of the third. Sean Cheely started the inning with a base hit and stole second. Two batters later, Sam Frontino walked to put runners on first and second, when Lake Erie executed a double steal. Cheely stole third and the pitch skipped past the catcher, Phillips, and allowed Cheely to score. On the next pitch, Jiandido Tromp reached on a RBI infield single to score Frontino and tie the game.

Evansville put the game away with a five run fifth inning. Noah Meyers started the rally with a double to center, and Phillips brought him home with a RBI single to right, which started a string of four straight hits. Jomar Reyes followed with a RBI double off the wall in right before Josh Broughton singled to left and Ethan Skender capped the big inning with a two run triple to left center.

The Otters went on to score another run in the eighth and two more in the ninth to pull away.

Evansville lefty Braden Scott (1-0) held the Crushers to a pair of runs on three hits over six innings and struck out nine batters in a winning effort. Lake Erie’s Angelo Baez (4-6) was tagged with the loss after allowing seven runs on eight hits while walking four and fanning three batters over 4.1 innings.

The Crushers will continue their home stand on Friday night as they begin a three game series with the Tri-City Valley Cats at Mercy Health Stadium. Right-hander Matt Mulhearn (4-4, 4.04) will start for the Crushers and the Valley Cats will counter with righty Andrew Dietz (0-1, 9.64). The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 PM.