Traverse City Earned Rain Shortened Win

June 16, 2012 - Frontier League (FL)
Traverse City Beach Bums News Release


TRAVERSE CITY, MI - The Traverse City Beach Bums built up a 5-0 lead and never looked back, scoring a 7-4 win over the Lake Erie Crushers in a game that was shortened to seven innings due to rain.

Traverse City jumped on the board with the first run of the game in the bottom of the second as Chase Burch was hit by a pitch, followed by a Jeff Flagg walk. A flyout to center by Marcus Nidiffer moved Burch to third and a groundout by Sean Gusrang scored him to put TC up 1-0.

The lead would grow in the fourth as Flagg clocked his ninth homer of the year out to left to lead off the inning. Not stopping there, Nidiffer followed with a sharp single to center. Gusrang hit a slow bouncer to second that Brandon Decker sailed past the shortstop Wally Correa allowing Nidiffer to make it into third and putting Gusrang on second. Kyle Eveland bounced into a fielder's choice on which Nidiffer was thrown out at the plate and Gusrang moved to third.

As the inning continued along for TC, Ryan Still came up next and hit another ball to Decker that he also tossed over the head of Correa at second. This error proved more costly as Gusrang would score and Eveland would make it to second for a 3-0 Beach Bums lead. Brian Heere followed with a walk to load the bases for Kyle Colligan who hit an RBI groundout to score Eveland and make it 4-0. Traverse City would cap the scoring in the frame on a single by Jose Vargas to plate Heere and pump the lead to 5-0.

Lake Erie got back into the contest with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth on a Robby Kuzdale double, but the Beach Bums came right back in the bottom of the inning when Nidiffer hit his fourth homer of the season to push the lead back to four runs.

The Crushers would score another two runs in the sixth inning with help from the Traverse City defense to close the gap to 6-4. Once again, the Beach Bums answered in their half of the frame as with two outs, Vargas singled and Burch walked to put runners on first and second for Flagg who smoked a ball to center for a single, scoring Vargas and making it 7-4 TC.

After a scoreless top of the seventh, the rains started to fall, halting proceedings. After a 43 minute rain delay the remaining two innings were called off, giving the Beach Bums the win.

Bennett Whitmore (2-1) picked up the victory with 5.1 innings of work. Matt Miller earned the save after getting out of a bases loaded jam in the sixth. Josh Rickards (1-1) took the loss for the Crushers.

The Beach Bums now head out on the road for six games starting with a three game series at Joliet. Jacob Clem (1-2, 2.93) will start for Traverse City on Sunday against Wander Alvino (1-0, 0.00) for the Slammers. The pregame show on Sunny Country 101.9 will begin at 5:45 p.m. outside of a 6:05 first pitch.

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Frontier League Stories from June 16, 2012


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