Kelly Dominates Rippers as Beach Bums Cruise
June 23, 2012 - Frontier League (FL)
Traverse City Beach Bums News Release
TRAVERSE CITY, MI - Reid Kelly turned in an exquisite pitching performance, tossing just the third two-hitter in Traverse City Beach Bums history and the offense handled the rest as the Beach Bums opened up a six-game homestand with a 9-0 thrashing of the London Rippers in front of 3.403 fans at Wuerfel Park
Kelly (4-1) was impressive from the start, whiffing the first two batters of the game and only allowed one baserunner through the first 3.1 innings of play. Traverse City would get Kelly all the offense he would need on the night as Jeff Flagg clocked his league-leading 10th homer of the season in the fourth inning, a blast that split the distance between the scoreboard and the batter's eye in left-centerfield for a 1-0 Beach Bums lead.
Not content to stop there, TC opened the offensive floodgates in the fifth. After Kyle Eveland led off with a walk, Brian Heere stepped into the batter's box intending to sacrifice. Heere dropped a good bunt down the third base line, forcing a rushed throw by London third baseman Stephen Cardullo that sailed past the first baseman allowing Heere to reach. With runners on first and second, Ryan Still also sacrificed down the third base line where it was fielded by Rippers' pitcher Sheng-An Kuo. His throw to third to try to nab Eveland was high, allowing Eveland to score and moving Heere and Still to third and second respectively.
The offense marched on as two batters later Chase Burch lined a single to left, scoring Heere and pushing the lead to 3-0. A pitching change didn't help matters as the Beach Bums would cap the scoring in the frame on the first pitch from Chris Kaminski as Flagg took the rookie over the rightfield wall for his second homer of the game and a 6-0 TC advantage.
Meanwhile, Kelly continued to mow down London hitters, taking a no-hitter into the seventh. After Joash Brodin reached on catcher's interference to lead off the inning, David Christensen grounded into a double play to clear the bases. Stephen Cardullo came up and lined a ball into left for a single, breaking up the no-no.
Traverse City would cap the scoring in the eighth with three runs, the first coming on Sean Gusrang's fifth homer of the season.
Kelly would do the rest striking out the side in the ninth to record a career-high nine punchouts. With his performance he joins Steve Shippey (6/12/06) and Shaun Parker (6/21/06) as the only Beach Bums pitchers to toss a complete game, two-hitter.
The middle game of the series comes up on Sunday with David Deminsky (3-1, 6.03) on the mound for Traverse City against Yohan Gonzalez (3-1, 2.43) for London. It is Motorcycle Night sponsored by Allstate and Classic Motor Sports as well as a Family FUNday Sunday. Kids ages 5-12 get half off a chairback ticket with the purchase of an adult chairback ticket, kids can run the bases after the game and there will be a full team, postgame autograph session.
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