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Mudcats make waves early, swamp Griffons with seven-run fourth
The Griffons two-game winning streak hit a snag Tuesday night at Lyons Stadium, as Nevada was dealt a 10-7 defeat by the visiting Mudcats of Chillicothe.
The loss moves the Griffons to 9-15 overall and 9-13 in MINK-play, while the Mudcats of the North division, fall to 9-9 in league-play.
Chillicothe jumped on top 1-0 in the first, after Kody Gardner was plated on a Kris Peres fielders choice groundout. The Griffons then struck back with a big second inning, as Noah Menchaca started the hit parade with a leadoff single.
Ben Sneider and Oscar Larranaga followed suit with singles, loading the bases for clean-up hitter Cole Solomon. Solomon collected an RBI after being hit by a Trevor Maly pitch, bringing in Menchaca.
With one out, a red-hot Rafael Villela Jr. singled in Larranaga, as the Griffons grabbed a 2-1 advantage. The fifth single of the frame came off the bat of shortstop L.J. Hatch, scoring Solomon as the Griffons led 3-1.
An error in the third charged to second baseman Solomon, led to a pair of runs scoring, as the Mudcats knotted the contest 3-3.
Chillicothe then broke the game open in the fourth with a seven run inning, in which the Mudcats racked up five base hits while also benefiting from two infield errors.
After reaching on leadoff walk to open the fourth, Bryce Bisenius came around to score on a Solomon error, as the Mudcats reclaimed the lead, 4-3.
Solomon’s rough fielding night continued, with his third error of the evening and second of the inning proving extra costly, as his throw was wide of first baseman Sneider, allowing Anthony Lantigua and Christian Hoplock to cross home plate, as Chillicothe increased its lead to 6-3.
A two-out Gardner RBI double into the right-center field gap put the Mudcats up four runs, while also knocking Griffons starter Dante Richardson from the contest. Richardson was replaced on the hill by D.J. Alexander, who promptly yielded an RBI single to Peres. After a Justin Blasinki extra base hit put runners in scoring position, Bisenius then capitalized with a two-RBI single as the Mudcats lead swelled to 10-3.
The Griffons trimmed the lead to six runs in the home-half of the fourth, courtesy of Kainaulu Pitoy’s RBI double. Nevada then tacked on a pair of runs in the sixth, as Hatch’s two-RBI single sliced the Mudcats lead to 10-6. The inning, however, came to a close with two runners stranded, as Pitoy went down swinging. The final run of the contest came in the seventh, as Pitoy’s single plated Solomon.
Stranding runners continues to be a problem as the Griffons left 14 runners on base for the contest. At the plate, Hatch went 4-for-5 with a pair of RBIs and a run scored, as the New Mexico State product upped his batting average to .444 on the season. Villela Jr. collected a pair of hits, increasing his average to. 347, while Larranaga finished 3-for-5 with two runs scored.
Richardson (0-2) took the loss, allowing eight runs (four earned) over 3.2 innings of work.