PHOTOS: Crushers vs. Windy City, May 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe have a lot of new faces, and these boys need a lot of time to jell,\u201d Crushers Manager Jared Lemieux said. \u201cI thought the leaders on this team were doing a great job of bringing people together. We kept the group together, came out with great energy today. There is a lot of talent out here. Once we start to jell, you better watch out for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sittinger pitched the final two innings. The Thunderbolts’ eighth inning resulted in two runs being scored on Michael Sandle\u2019s two-run single.<\/p>\n
Despite the runs being unearned, it cost Sittinger the save.<\/p>\n
The Crushers\u2019 offense responded with a leadoff single from Derek Vagas and three walks right after.\u00a0Vegas was brought home with a walk on Parks at-bat for this third run driven in.<\/p>\n
In the ninth inning, Sittinger threw a perfect inning. He retired all three batters with a groundout to shortstop Jarrod Watkins and a pair of strikeouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to make it a little harder,\u201d Sittinger joked. \u201cI got a little too comfortable and gave up a couple of walks and gave up a hit that scored two. After that, I kind of knew that it was done.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the beginning, the Crushers saw a familiar face on the mound in former Crushers pitcher Ethan Smith.<\/p>\n
According to Lemieux, Smith was traded late in the season after starting in 17 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou kind of have an advanced scouting report on (Smith),\u201d Lemieux said. \u201cYou never know in those games when you are facing players that used to play for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against the former Crusher, the Crushers recorded 10 hits with three earned runs.<\/p>\n
Parks kickstarted it with a home run on the game\u2019s third pitch, then Watkins drove in Vegas in the fourth inning, along with Luis Acevedo\u2019s run in the fifth.<\/p>\n
Against relief pitcher Avery Cook, Garret Pike reached first base on an error and was brought home by Parks\u2019 flyout to left field.<\/p>\n
The Crushers improved to 2-4, and they will look to carry the momentum into their next home series against the Mississippi Mud Monsters.<\/p>\n
The first game will take place on May 15.<\/p>\n
The score<\/p>\n
Crushers 5, Thunderbolts 4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After losing to the Windy City Thunderbolts twice with a combined score of 20-2, the Lake Erie Crushers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[19154,2101,136,138,137,305,293,726,85689],"class_list":["post-192547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-crushers","tag-cuyahoga-county","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-high-school-sports","tag-ohio","tag-sports","tag-westlake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}