The Lakewood BlueClaws, who won both games of a doubleheader Monday making up for Sunday's rain out, combined with West Virginia's extra inning loss to Lake County, find themselves only 2 games out of first place as they ready for a 4 game showdown with the Power starting Tuesday night at First Energy Park.
Chance Chapman (6-5) struggled his way through 3.1 innings, and did not record the win despite the BlueClaws scoring 6 early runs for him. Lakewood got 3 RBI from Mike Durant for the second consecutive game and ran out to a 6-1 lead after 2 innings. Kannapolis would battle their way back into the game, cutting the lead to 6-4 by the 4th. T.J. Warren's first home run of the season, a monster blast into the left center field berm, gave Lakewood their margin of victory as Chris Kissock picked up his 3rd win of the season 7-4. Jared Simon (Simon says, "Game Over") notched save #22 with a 1-2-3 7th.
The second game belonged to the pitchers, as Mike Cisco made his Lakewood debut by throwing 5 scoreless innings. Cisco was promoted from Williamsport to replace Sergio Escalona, who was promoted to Reading yesterday morning (I guess Joe Rocchio was not ready to come off the DL as I speculated) , where he had a 1.86 ERA in 9 games for the Crosscutters. On Monday, he gave up just 1 hit and NO walks, striking out 3. Reymond Cruz got the next 6 outs, not without adventure, but no runs crossed the plate and Zack Sterner (Mr Opportunity) was once again in the right place, as he retired Kannapolis in the 8th, and Lakewood scored in the bottom half to take a 1-0 thriller. Sterner is now 9-1, 1.60 on the year. The big hit was a 1-out double by Matt Rizzotti, who continues to get big hits since his return to the line-up.
The sweep, combined with the Powers' 6-5, 13 inning defeat to the Captains has the BlueClaws poised for their biggest series of the year. Vance Worley (1-0, 1-50)will get the ball tonight for Lakewood, who has now won 3 in a row and 21 of the last 28.
In Tucson last night, Jesus Merchan continued his hot hitting, adding on 2 more hits, and is 25 for 55, that's .455, in his last 13 games.
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