Loons Held to Two Hits in Loss
August 15, 2012 - Midwest League (MWL1)
Great Lakes Loons News Release
MIDLAND, MI - The Great Lakes Loons (23-28, 57-64) were held to one run and two hits in Wednesday's 4-1 loss to the visiting Bowling Green Hot Rods (31-20, 69-52) before 3,455 fans at Dow Diamond.
The Hot Rods broke out of the low-scoring affair in the eighth inning off of Loons reliever Danny Coulombe, who loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batsmen. Josh Sale, who homered earlier, followed up by connecting on a two-run single for the 4-1 lead.
"We're facing a pretty good Bowling Green team and they were able to take advantage of a couple mistakes we made," Loons manager John Shoemaker said. "We put a couple people on base with base on balls and then they were able to capitalize. We didn't have many chances at all really and only got a couple base hits. We've just got to be ready to bounce back tomorrow."
The Loons got on the board first in the fourth inning via Pratt Maynard's infield groundball towards first base. Pitcher Trevor Shull fielded the ball, looked towards home before turning for the easy out at first, giving the Loons the 1-0 lead. Unfortunately for Great Lakes, that was the only run they scored. Darnell Sweeney and Maynard provided the team's only hits.
Despite the offensive woes, the Loons showed progress defensively. Starting pitcher Greg Wilborn escaped a bases-loaded two-out jam in the third inning with a caught stealing at third that finished with a play at the plate. The sequence went 2-5-2-4-3.
"Maynard and [Jesse] Bosnik were really alert on the attempted pickoff at third," Shoemaker said. "Our pitcher was in trouble there, so sometimes you try and get out of a jam with a pickoff. The Bowling Green runner, when the ball grazed him, he thought the ball had kicked away from [Bosnik], but Bosnik was able to recover it and forced a rundown...It was a big play for us."
Wilborn surrendered his only run in the fifth inning, when Sale hit a home run to dead center, tying the game 1-1. Wilborn finished with six strikeouts through six innings. Reliever James Campbell surrendered the go-ahead run in the seventh and was handed the loss. In the eighth, left fielder Scott Schebler fired a strike to Maynard for an out at the plate to keep the game at 4-1.
The Great Lakes Loons will play game two against the Hot Rods on Thursday night at Dow Diamond and send RHP Duke von Schamann (3-3, 3.18) to the hill against RHP Parker Markel (8-5, 3.99). Fans attending the game can enjoy hot dogs, 16 oz. Coke products and ice cream sandwiches for one dollar apiece courtesy of Chemical Bank's $1 Family Feast Night.
The Great Lakes Loons are a sixth-year Single-A partner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and are in the middle of their 5th Anniversary Celebration, which kicked off in August 2011 and will continue throughout the 2012 season. For more information about the Loons, visit Loons.com or call 989-837-BALL.
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