Belters Earn First Sweep at Home
July 15, 2018 - Frontier League (FL)
Normal CornBelters News Release
Normal CornBelters pitcher Jack Landwehr
(Normal CornBelters)
NORMAL, Ill. - While the Normal CornBelters (25-26) were rained out for the 10th time this season on Saturday, they defeated the Evansville Otters (26-26), 6-5 and 5-0 on Sunday to earn their first sweep at home all season to give Manager Billy Horn's mother a belated birthday gift to conclude her visit.
GAME 1:
"We walked off today finally and it was nice. Lovely (Derrick Loveless) got a 0-2 pitch right over the plate and he is going to take care of those, but earlier in the game we got a huge home run to tie the game by Godbold. He has been outstanding for us the last couple weeks. Game one was great to get us a win and secure the series," said Manager Billy Horn.
Normal continued the late-inning magic with two outs in the seventh. Justin Fletcher drew a walk then Santiago Chirino was intentional walked to bring up Derrick Loveless as Evansville brought in a lefty for the matchup. Down to his final strike, the 2018 Frontier League All-Star MVP roped a walk-off single into right-center to give Normal their first walk-off hit of the year and to secure the series win.
The CornBelters caught the Otters and tied the game in sixth. Loveless leadoff with an infield single and Godbold followed with his eighth home run to even game one of the doubleheader. Anthony Herrera (5-2) made his team-leading 25th appearance and kept the Otters off the board to earn his team-best fifth victory. In his last 10 outings, the sidearmer has earned two wins and six saves.
Evansville jumped on top right away in the first game of the doubleheader and scored their first runs of the series with a two-run home run off Zack Kirby in the first. The Otters then added another run in the second and took advantage of an error by Sam Baca to go up 4-0 in the third.
For the second game in a row, Normal did record their first hit until a single the fourth inning from Santiago Chirino and the offense woke up as well. Loveless drew a walk and then Andrew Godbold followed with an RBI single for the first Belter run of the game. Nick Cain cut the lead in half, 4-2 with a groundout to first base and then the Otters starting pitcher balked to bring in Godbold and Normal trailed 4-3.
Kirby shutout the Otters in the fourth, but was pulled in the next inning after he gave up a two-out RBI double to give Evansville a 5-3 lead. Trevor Simms came in and threw strikeout to end fifth. Miles Moeller made his CornBelter debut in the sixth and kept Evansville scoreless along with his first strikeout.
"Kirby came out and didn't have his best stuff, but he battled though. Then Simms came in a really big situation. He had gotten warmed earlier in the game and got out of that then we just shut him down."
GAME 2:
Normal was shutout the first four innings of the series finale and then irrupted for a five-run fifth started with recently signed James Davison Jr. who hit a ground rule double for his first hit to bring in Baca who reached on a single and give Normal a 1-0 lead. All-Star teammates Fletcher and Chirino each knocked back-to-back RBI singles to go up 3-0. Godbold picked up his fifth RBI and fourth hit of the day with a double to round out the inning.
Despite not pitching in the All-Star game earlier this week, Jack Landwehr (4-2) showed why he deserved to be in his eighth start on the season. He threw five shutout innings and limited Evansville to just two hits. The Illinois State product didn't walk anyone for the second straight start along with four strikeouts. Landwehr has now picked up a victory in four straight starts and hasn't Jonathan de Marte tied Herrera for a team-high 22nd appearance and threw two shutout innings (6th and 7th). The righty now has not allowed a run in his last eight outings.
"What can you say about Jack. An All-Star, five innings tonight and then that fifth inning we scored five runs, but it was such a long inning and I already had it predetermined that just hey long inning here especially with a pitching change we will just turn it over to de Marte and he came in and did his thing. We didn't walk anybody and that's the big thing."
The Belter bats were led by Godbold and Loveless in the doubleheader sweep of Evansville. Godbold finished 4-5, 4 RBI, and a home run and in his last four games, he has collected eight RBI. Loveless went 4-7 and one RBI to move his average up to .319, which ranks sixth in the league.
"Loveless and Godbold again in game two. Those guys have been coming through. Godbold is hitting over .300 again and should have been an All-Star."
The CornBelters earn their first sweep at home and second on the season with the last being at River City June 5-7. The Otters have only been shutout twice all year with both coming at the Corn Crib.
"We are geared up for the second half and we made some changes, we know we are built and ready to win. We are locked in and ready to go and compete for a playoff spot. Our guys proved that today."
Normal is now one game under five hundred and 4-1 in the last five as they play the Washington Wild Things who just got swept by the Lake Erie Crushers at home. Game one of the midweek series begins on Tuesday with first pitch at 7:05 p.m.
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 Normal CornBelters pitcher Jack Landwehr |
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Frontier League Stories from July 15, 2018
- Belters Earn First Sweep at Home - Normal CornBelters
- Crushers Pull Off Dramatic Win in Extras to Complete Sweep - Lake Erie Crushers
- ThunderBolts Fall in Extra Innings - Windy City ThunderBolts
- Wild Things Fall to Crushers 6-5 in 13 Innings - Washington Wild Things
- Otters Swept Away in Doubleheader by CornBelters - Evansville Otters
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- Freedom Dominate Miners to Take Series - Florence Y'alls
- Beach Bums Walk It off in Comeback Win - Traverse City Beach Bums
- Beach Bums Walk Past Boomers to Series Victory - Schaumburg Boomers
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