Lowe, Cunningham spin first Captains shutout of '09

Published on July 11, 2009 under American Association (AA)
Shreveport-Bossier Captains News Release


SHREVEPORT, La. - July has been a month of firsts for the Shreveport-Bossier Captains, as they picked up their first three-game winning streak, their first win (and then another) over El Paso, their first win (and then another) after trailing going to the ninth inning, and on Saturday night, their first shutout and four-game winning streak of the season, beating the Wichita Wingnuts 4-0 in front of 3,917 at Fair Grounds Field.

Lefty Ronald Lowe (4-5) won for the first time in three starts by throwing seven shutout innings, working out of a bases loaded, no out jam in his final inning. All-Star Jakob Cunningham then picked up his first professional save with two shutout innings, facing the minimum six batters thanks to a pickoff of Greg Porter to end the eighth.

The Captains (26-27, 4-1 2nd half) got the first runs of the game (for the first time since July 3) from an unlikely source, as second baseman Richard Paz hit a long fly off the top of the leftfield wall that bounced over for his first home run of the year to give the Captains a 2-0 lead in the second inning.

After that, lefty Brad Davis (4-5) settled in with three shutout frames, until the Captains tacked on an insurance run in the sixth. Christopher Garcia led off with a double, but was only advanced to third after a pair of groundouts. Jose Torres then came up and hit a triple to right-center to score Garcia and make it 3-0 Captains. That ended the night for Davis, who went 5 2/3 innings, giving up three runs on six hits with a walk and one strikeout.

Wichita's best chance came in the following inning, as Joseph Muich singled, Stephen Pearson was hit by a pitch, and Michael Thompson singled to load the bases with no one out. But Patrick Brooks hit a soft line drive to second on the first pitch he saw, and Paz threw to second to double off Pearson who had strayed too far from the bag. Lowe came back to get Brenan Herrera swinging to end the inning.

Cunningham then got a flyout and a strikeout to start the eighth before walking and then picking off Porter. The Captains then got their final run off Justin Young in the eighth, getting another leadoff double by Garcia, and an RBI single by Andres Rodriguez. Young did preserve the Wingnuts bullpen, throwing the final 2 1/3 innings, allowing just the run on the two eighth-inning hits, with no walks and one strikeout.

Once the lead had been pressed to four, Cunningham stayed on to try to get the save and give fellow All-Star Justin Dowdy a day off. He struck out Dustan Mohr and Muich to start the ninth, before getting Pearson to fly out softly to center to end things.

Wichita (33-21, 1-5) came into the game with a league-leading .297 batting average, but were held to just four hits Saturday and only have 10 hits in the first two games of the series.

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American Association Stories from July 11, 2009


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