NYPL Lowell Spinners

Spinners Make it Four Straight

Published on August 30, 2013 under New York-Penn League (NYPL)
Lowell Spinners News Release


LOWELL, MASS. - The Lowell Spinners truly have control of their own playoff destiny and the recipe for success is fairly simple: win and you're in.

Win the Spinners did, as Lowell won their fourth straight and swept both ends of a home-and-home with the Connecticut Tigers with a 3-1 win Friday night at Dodd Stadium.

The win, coupled with a Tri-City ValleyCats loss to Vermont, pulls the Spinners to just a half game out of first place in the Stedler Division. The Wild Card leading Jamestown Jammers also lost Friday night, putting the Spinners one game back in that race as well.

After Corey Littrell pitched around a second and third, one out predicament in the bottom half of the first inning, the Spinners were first on the scoreboard with two runs in the top half of the second inning. Kevin Mager led off the inning with a bunt single and Danny Bethea followed with an RBI double to the right-centerfield gap. A Carlos Asuaje sacrifice fly brought home Mager and Aaron King delivered an RBI single to give the Spinners a 2-0 lead.

The score remained there until the top half of the seventh inning when Lowell (39-29) added an insurance run with a two-out rally. After Nick Moore narrowly missed a home run with a double off the left field wall, a Tzu-Wei Lin groundball got away from Curt Powell at short, scoring Moore and extending the lead to 3-0.

Connecticut (31-39) got the run back in the bottom half of the seventh inning, taking advantage of a Lin error. After Lin made a great play, turning a line-drive into a double play, he dropped a popup with two outs and Tyler Gibson followed with an RBI triple to cut the Spinners lead to 3-1.

The Tigers would pull no closer however, as closer Joe Gunkel struck out four of the six batters he faced to preserve the win.

The win concludes the season series between the two teams, a match-up the Spinners dominated in winning 11 of the 14 matchups.

Littrell went four innings, a new high in his young career, allowing three hits while striking out five. Yunior Ortega (1-0, 4.26) picked up the win with three innings of relief. He allowed the unearned run on three hits, striking out two. Gunkel picked up his fifth save with another dominating, hitless performance out of the bullpen.

The Spinners had just six hits, but made those hits count. No player reached base more than once for the Spinners, while Jake Romanski saw his seven game hitting streak, including five straight games with an extra-base hit, snapped by an 0-for-4 night. Bethea did extend his hitting streak to seven with his double, and now has hits in 12 of his last 13 games.

The race for first place continues Saturday night at LeLacheur Park when the ValleyCats arrive for a critical two-game series. Ty Buttrey (3-3, 2.41) gets the ball for the Spinners with Simon Mercedes (2-2, 3.28) to follow out of the bullpen. First pitch is set for 7:05 with post-game fireworks to cap the evening.




New York-Penn League Stories from August 30, 2013


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