FL River City Rascals

Rascals Snap Five Game Losing Streak

Published on August 5, 2016 under Frontier League (FL)
River City Rascals News Release


Josh Ludy drove in a pair of runs in the fourth inning to give the Rascals (31-37) their first lead of the six game road trip and his pitching staff turned in a solid effort helping pave the way for an 8-4 victory Thursday night against the Windy City Thunderbolts (34-35). In the win, Ludy finished with three hits and three RBI while Kyle Gaedele reached all five times, including a solo home run to tie the game up at one in the second inning.

Gaedele's home run was not the first in the game as the ThunderBolts catcher Corey Bass homered over the center field wall to give his ball club an early 1-0 lead in what would be their only lead of the game against Rascals ace Zeb Sneed.

Sneed went on to hold the opponent scoreless the next two frames and his offense gave him a three run lead by the time he took the mound in the bottom of the fourth.

In the top of the fourth against Bolts right-hander Clay Chapman, Mike Jurgella drew a walk however was caught stealing during the early stages of Josh Silver's at-bat. Silver would go on to single and then Gaedele became the third consecutive Rascal to reach as he walked to bring up Josh Ludy.

In Chapman's last outing, the ThunderBolts ace allowed just one run over 8 1/3 innings but more than doubled that in Thursday night's start as Josh Ludy belted a two RBI double to put the Rascals up 3-1. Prior to Ludy's double, the Rascals never held a lead during the road trip, spanning over 48 innings.

Two batters later, Robby Enslen followed that up with his second RBI double of the series and the Rascals held a three run advantage for Sneed.

"That was a great stretch of at-bats, we have been struggling with runners on base so it was huge for the first two runs to come into score and even better that Robby Enslen was able to get me in with two outs," Josh Ludy said.

Sneed held the opponent scoreless in the bottom of the fourth and then got into his only jam of the game in the home half of the fifth.

With two on and one out, Sneed walked Blair Beck to load the bases and then struck out CoCo Johnson to become one out away from keeping the three run lead.

However, one pitch later the ThunderBolts pulled within one with a two RBI single up the middle from Tim Zier. Sneed followed that up with a strikeout in what would be his final inning.

Leaving in line for the win at 4-3, Sneed allowed three runs on five hits and struck out seven.

River City got the bats going again in the late stages of the game adding three in the seventh to take a 7-3 lead highlighted by a RBI single from Josh Ludy and then Mike Jurgella drove in Jason Merjano in the eighth on a squeeze.

Will Schierholz, Michael Gunn, Nick Kennedy, and Zac Treece held the ThunderBolts scoreless while Shane Street allowed the ThunderBolts to score their final run in the bottom of the eighth inning, a RBI single from Charley Thurber.

Zeb Sneed took the win, his sixth of the year which gives him a new career high and Clay Chapman took the loss, his fifth of the year.

"It's just another victory in my mind, the end goal is just to get more wins than losses," Sneed said.

He is on the right track at 6-5 and his team will look to stay in the win column as the Rascals host the Washington Wild Things to begin a six game homestand Friday night.

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