For the second time this season, the Crushers had a home game suspended, to be finished the next day, and for the second time, the break did Lake Erie no favors.<\/p>\n
On June 17, the Crushers were tied at 5-5 with the Otters when the game was suspended, but were outscored, 13-4, in the resumed contest for an 18-9 loss.<\/p>\n
On July 3, they led the ThunderBolts, 2-1, after a two-run home run by Jarrod Watkins just minutes before the game was called. Despite starting the next day with two runners on in the fourth, they fell, 6-4.<\/p>\n
After getting out of the jam in the fourth, the ThunderBolts immediately got the lead back, scoring two in the fifth on an RBI double by Michael Sandle and an RBI single by Jared Beebe.<\/p>\n
After Windy City added one more in the seventh and two more in the eighth to go up 6-2, Lake Erie had a comeback attempt in store, loading the bases with nobody out in ninth, but Justin Lovell forced back-to-back run-scoring groundouts, then struck out Pavin Parks to cut the comeback short.<\/p>\n
The Crushers, however, bounced back quickly from the disappointment of the day\u2019s first game.<\/p>\n
Bob Helt pitched a scoreless first to start the second game, then Sebastian Alexander and Parks started the bottom of the inning with back-to-back hits to give the Crushers an early 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Both teams got some traffic over the next couple innings, but the Crushers were unable to add to their lead, while Helt continued his strong start with two more scoreless innings.<\/p>\n
All in all, he dealt three shutout innings and allowed just one hit with three walks and three strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Following Helt\u2019s performance, the next three pitchers for the Crushers, Wesley Culley, Christian Scafidi, and Branden Noriega, combined to keep the lead at 1-0 while the offense was still unable to extend it.<\/p>\n
Scafidi, in particular, recorded a huge scoreless inning, getting over to cover first for an inning-ending double play in the fifth with a runner on third to preserve the Crushers\u2019 slim lead.<\/p>\n
After six shutout innings from a pitching staff that has struggled all season, Lake Erie finally broke in the seventh, though closer Brandyn Sittinger came so close to finishing off the team\u2019s first shutout since June 19, albeit in seven innings.<\/p>\n
With the ThunderBolts down to their last strike and the tying run on second, Justin Fogel ripped Sittinger\u2019s 2-2 pitch down the left-field line for a two-run, go-ahead home run.<\/p>\n
The Crushers had one more chance, as Joe Redfield got himself into scoring position with one out, but Sebastian Alexander struck out, bringing Parks to the plate with a chance to tie the game for the second game in a row.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for the Crushers, he was once again unable to deliver, flying out to left to end the game.<\/p>\n
Lake Erie will have a chance to avoid the sweep on July 5 at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second time this season, the Crushers had a home game suspended, to be finished the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[19154,136,138,137,241,726],"class_list":["post-235900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-crushers","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235900","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=235900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}