CornBelters Fall in Extras to Southern Illinois
Published on June 9, 2018 under Frontier League (FL)
Normal CornBelters News Release
Santiago Chirino of the Normal CornBelters
(Normal CornBelters, Credit: Hannah Conlisk)
NORMAL, Ill. - In the longest inning game of the season for Normal, the (11-13) CornBelters were unable to piece it together in a 7-6 loss to (15-9) Southern Illinois Miners on Friday night.
After the CornBelters swept the division-leading River City Rascals last series, the Illinois State product, Jack Landwehr (0-1) started the series opener against the Southern Illinois Miners who were tied with the Rascals for first in the West. In his second start on the season, the righty went six innings, striking out two and allowing five runs.
Derrick Loveless stayed a course and continued his league-leading on-base streak of 24 games with a walk to leadoff the second.
The Miners took a 2-0 advantage in the third on a couple hits and a throwing error from Sam Vega in the third.
Normal responded in the bottom half. Just Fletcher singled to right for his second hit of the game. He moved to second after Santiago Chirino grounded out to third. Tanner Lubach singled up the middle to bring in Fletcher for his 20th RBI.
Vega drew a walk to begin the fifth then reached second on a sacrifice bunt from Fletcher. Chirino singled for hit number 623. Then a double steal brought in Vega to tie the game at 2.
The CornBelter bats manufactured runs once again with two outs. Vega hit his second triple of the season to bring in two runs and to put the Belters up 4-2. Fletcher won a 3-2 battle and doubled into right-center to bring in Vega for his second run of the game. Since he (Fletcher) was activated on May 26th, the Belter veteran has knocked 18 hits. Also highlighting the inning was a single from Chi Chi for his 624th hit.
Southern Illinois tied the series opener on a three-run home run to right, which knocked Landwehr out of the game in the seventh.
Horn then brought in Jonathan de Marte to finish off the seventh. The hard-throwing righty got out of the inning in fashion and struck out the side.
Making his debut, Ryan Lawlor entered the eighth. On his second pitch, the Miner batter hit a ball going up the middle, but the lefty made a kick save that bounced to Lubach and he made the throw to get the batter out. The out went down in the book, as a 1-2-3. The Georgia Bulldog went four innings and fanned four Miners with not allowing a hit or walk.
It looked like Normal was going to get it's first walk-off in the ninth when Chirino leadoff with a single, but he was left stranded. His single was hit number 625 for his career and he is now only 11 hits away from becoming the all-time hit king in the frontier league.
Neither team scored in the tenth forcing the start of the International Tiebreaker rule with the last batted out starting as an automatic runner on second base. The CornBelters respond Southern Illinois who scored when Holten knocked a single up the middle to score Fletcher to continue extras.
Both teams remained scoreless in the twelfth after closer Kuehl McEachern (0-2) who came in the game in the ninth, got out jam to strand a runner at third.
The bases loaded in the following inning (13th) with two outs for the Miners. A ground ball that was going up the middle that bounced off McEachern toward the shortstop area. Chirino picked it up and slide like a base runner to get the force out at second, but he was late and Southern Illinois scored to go up 7-6.
Vega started the bottom half on second, then a strikeout later, Chirino drew a four-pitch walk. The Belters couldn't piece it together and fell to Southern Illinois in the series opener. Game two is at 7:05 on Saturday with Kevin Matthews on the mound for Normal.
Images from this story
 Santiago Chirino of the Normal CornBelters (Hannah Conlisk) |
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