FL River City Rascals

River City Avoids Double-Header Sweep with Stellar

Published on July 21, 2016 under Frontier League (FL)
River City Rascals News Release


The Rascals dropped game one in their sixth double-header of the regular season Wednesday night, 2-0 against Washington, but Joe Pavlovich combined with Nick Kennedy for a one-hit shutout in the second game to give the Rascals (26-28) a 6-0 win and the chance to win their second consecutive series Thursday night at Consol Energy Park. Game One

Coming out on the wrong side of a series sweep against Southern Illinois and moving out of first place in the eastern division, the Wild Things (28-26) turned to right-hander Matt Fraudin and he was stellar in all seven innings paving the way for a 2-0 victory.

The right-hander struck out four in the first two frames and his offense gave him a 2-0 lead heading into third.

With one out, Grant Fink homered off Rascals starter Jake Negrete and then three consecutive baserunners reached including a single from Austin Wobrock that drove in a run and gave the Wild Things a two run advantage.

However, Negrete was solid the rest of the way retiring the side in order the next three innings and finished with his first quality start as a member of the Rascals.

Despite taking his second loss of the season with River City and fourth overall in the Frontier League this year, he was solid tossing six innings allowing just the two runs on five hits and struck out five.

"I struggled with a couple different teams in the first half of the season and I have come into River City confident and have worked on figuring out some things," Negrete said. "My changeup is always effective and it was again tonight, it's one of my go to pitches and it was also nice to have my slider show up this game."

Offensively for the Rascals, they had just three hits and two of them came from Josh Silver, who re-signed with the Rascals Thursday morning after playing 23 games with the Chicago Cubs Single-A Affiliate, South Bend. His first hit was in the opening frame and then got one more in the sixth that got Mike Jurgella into scoring position. However, Fraudin struck out his seventh of the night to end the top half of the inning.

The third hit came from Danny Rosenbaum with a two out double in the seventh and when he was left stranded on a fly out to end the game, it marked the fourth time being shutout on the year.

Game Two

The Rascals were on the right side of the shutout in the second game and the offense finally provided Joe Pavlovich solid run support as he earned his first win of 2016, 6-0.

In his fourth start of the year, Pavlovich held the opponent hitless through the first four innings and similar to Matt Fraudin in game one, the second year Rascal got to pitch with the lead from the second inning on.

The Rascals got a leadoff baserunner in each of the first four innings and after not taking advantage of a leadoff double from Alexi Colon in the opening frame, Jason Merjano delivered the Rascals first run of the night with a standup RBI triple to score Willi Martin from first base.

Wild Things game two starter Luke Wilkins walked Colon to begin the third inning and after a ground ball for the first out, shortstop Andrew Wobrock made a throwing error allowing Colon to come into score and give the Rascals a 2-0 lead.

After another 1-2-3 inning from Pavlovich, Clint Freeman and Braxton Martinez singled to lead off the top of the fourth. With two outs and the top of the order due up, Alexi Colon tallied the Rascals second triple of the night to give the club a four run advantage. One pitch later, Josh Ludy drove him in with a RBI single and the Rascals gave Pavlovich a 5-0 lead.

Prior to tonight, the Rascals offense only scored seven runs during his first three starts and Pavlovich was held without a victory despite having the lowest ERA on the team.

"It's always easier to pitch when you have the lead because you are more comfortable knowing you have room to work with," Pavlovich said. "Just fill up the strike zone."

He was pulled after issuing a leadoff walk in the seventh inning and finished giving up just one hit in six innings, a single to Andrew Heck in the fifth.

"To be honest I was a little effectively wild early on because I was sort of dead from the long bus ride," Pavlovich said. "I made a little adjustment in the third inning and kept throwing the ball and missing bats."

Nick Kennedy was called upon for the fourth time in five games and he recorded the final three outs to force the rubber match Thursday night in Washington, PA.

First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 (EST) with Tim Koons on the mound.

Check out the River City Rascals Statistics

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



Frontier League Stories from July 21, 2016


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central