MWL1 Burlington Bees

Top Prospect Earns First Win, Bees Beat Clinton 7-2

Published on May 29, 2012 under Midwest League (MWL1)
Burlington Bees News Release


BURLINGTON, Iowa (5/29/12) - The Burlington Bees took care of business against the Clinton LumberKings and won game four with a 7-to-2 score. The Bees responded to a 12-to-3 beating with a strong performance from one of the A's top prospects, A.J. Cole.

Cole came into the game without a win in the 2012 calendar year. The prospect earned a no decision against the Kane County Cougars in his Bees debut earlier in the week, but looked sharp in his debut at Community Field.

In fact the tall and skinny right-hander looked dominant at times and struck out seven batters and five of those batters whiffed for the third strike. Cole pitched six innings and only allowed four hits, three walks, and two runs (one earned). His perfor- mance was good enough to earn the win and help the Bees take three out of four games against the last-place LumberKings.

Baseball America's 2012 Prospect Handbook considers Cole the A's fourth best prospect and the 57th best prospect in the minors. The A's recently demoted Cole from Advanced A-ball after going 0-7 in eight starts with the Stockton Ports. Cole (1-0) earned his first win since August 13, 2011 when he was pitching in the Washington Nationals organization.

The Bees offense helped Cole's cause by scoring three runs in the first half of the game and adding four insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. The Bees scored in the third inning after Aaron Shipman led off the inning with a screaming line drive to right and scored on a double by Sean Jamieson. Jamieson scored on a base hit that Chih-Fang Pan bounced up the center of the diamond.

The Bees scored again in the fourth when Wade Kirkland hit a double to left field that allowed a hustling Nick Rickles to score. The Bees added four runs in the bottom of the eighth off Tim Griffin. Once again the Bees used extra-base hits to bury the LumberKings. Royce Consigli hit a one out triple and scored on a double by Rickles. Shipman added another double that scored Rickles with two outs. Pan hit another double before the inning was over and helped the Bees take a 7-to-2 lead.

Max Perlman pitched the final three innings of the game and did not allow a run. The tall right-hander earned his second save of the season.

The Bees start a three game series with the Peoria Chiefs on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. The Bees suffered a four-game sweep when they visited Peoria earlier in May. For information on Bees baseball and promotions, call (319) 754-5705 or visit www.gobees.com.

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Midwest League Stories from May 29, 2012


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