Lake Erie Crushers News & Game Recaps

Early Issues Cost Crushers in 7-3 Loss

Lake Erie surrenders five runs in the first two innings in setback to Valley Cats

Box Link: https://frontierleague.com/sports/bsb/2022-23/boxscores/20230729_c44e.xml

AVON, Ohio — The Lake Erie Crushers fell behind the Tri-City Valley Cats 5-0 after two innings of Saturday night’s contest and could not recover, as they dropped a 7-3 decision at Mercy Health Stadium.

The loss for the Crushers (27-38) was their third in a row after winning the first two games of the homestand, while the win for the Valley Cats (41-24) was their fourth in five games against the Crushers this season.

Tri-City scored a pair of runs to take an early lead in the top of the first inning. Walks were issued to the Pavin Parks and Cito Culver to start the contest, and Jakob Goldfarb followed with a two run double to left center.

They added a trio of runs in the second to take a 5-0 lead. Tanner Smith started the inning with a single to center and scored later in the inning on Parks’s RBI base hit to right. Goldfarb stroked a RBI single through the right side of the infield to plate the second run and Parks scored the final run of the inning on Juan Kelly’s groundout.

Lake Erie plated their first run of the contest in the bottom of the fourth. Jack Harris and Jarrod Watkins reached on back-to-back one out base hits and Harris came around to score on a wild pitch.

The Crushers scratched a pair across in the bottom of the fifth. Sam Frontino reached on a one out walk to start the rally, and he came around to score on Zach Racusin’s RBI single to right. Jack Harris brought in the next run when he reached on a fielder’s choice to plate Jiandido Tromp.

Tri-City removed any doubt by scoring two more times in the top of the ninth. Parks struck again with a RBI double down the line in left to score Hallmark and Kelly drove in the final run on a two-bagger to left to score Parks.

Yasel Santana (2-5) took the loss for the Crushers. After a rocky start, he settled down and threw four straight scoreless innings to finish his outing. He allowed five runs on five hits and walked four with four strikeouts over six innings of work. Dan Beebe (5-1) picked up the win for Tri-City after surrendering three runs on five hits with seven strikeouts over five innings of work.

The Crushers will finish both their six game home stand and their series with the Valley Cats at Mercy Health Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Lefty Jonaiker Villalobos (1-2, 9.17) will get the start for the Crushers and the first pitch is scheduled for 2:05 PM.