Lugnuts Surge Past Cubs in Late Innings Again, Win 4-1 

LANSING, MI – For the second consecutive game to start this week’s series, the Lansing Lugnuts erased a deficit in the final third of the contest to defeat the South Bend Cubs. In Wednesday’s day game, they put aside a 1-0 deficit with four runs in the seventh inning, following up Wednesday’s 10-inning walk-off win with a 4-1 victory. The Lugnuts now lead the series 2-0 and are 20-15 for the season, while the Cubs are 9-26 overall and remain in rough shape on the road at 1-16.

Click here to view Wednesday afternoon’s box score.

Opposing Lansing starting pitcher Steven Echavarria, the No. 12 Athletics prospect, the Cubs scored their only run of the game in the fourth inning. Second baseman and No. 6 Cubs prospect Jefferson Rojas led off with his second double of the game, bringing up center fielder Andy Garriola with a chance to break the scoreless tie. Garriola would exchange places with Rojas, scoring him on a sizzling double down the left-field line. The two-bagger stretched Garriola’s hit streak to six games, giving the Cubs a 1-0 lead.

The bigger story for the Cubs' offense, however, was its inability to score outside of that Garriola double. In the first inning, Rojas’s first double of the game put two runners in scoring position with one out, but Garriola struck out and third baseman Reginald Preciado flied out. The Cubs had two more men in scoring position in the fifth, but Rojas grounded out to end the threat. He came up in the same spot in the seventh but popped out to maintain the 1-0 score. In between those two innings in the sixth, the Cubs chased Echavarria from the mound and placed runners on the corners with one out, but Preciado hesitated off third on a wild pitch and was thrown out at the plate.

For the longest time, it seemed that South Bend starting pitcher Evan Aschenbeck might nullify all of his team’s missed opportunities. The left-hander walked the tightrope across his six scoreless innings, escaping multiple-baserunner situations in the second, fourth, and fifth. He came back out and quickly got the first out of the seventh inning but ran out of gas from there, conceding back-to-back hits before walking the bases loaded. Aschenbeck had still guaranteed himself a quality start by covering 6.1 innings on 94 pitches.

On came right-hander Kenyi Perez, who inherited three baserunners with one out in a 1-0 game. He walked the first man he faced, designated hitter Ryan Lasko, tying the game and pushing the go-ahead run to third base with still only one out. The next hitter, shortstop Joshua Kuroda-Grauer, singled Lansing into the lead, although South Bend left fielder Edgar Alvarez threw the trail runner out at the plate to keep the margin at one. The Lugnuts would add on anyway, as right fielder Clark Elliott bounced a two-run single into right field.

Lansing’s bullpen combined for 3.2 hitless innings to wrap the game up. Winning pitcher Tom Reisinger escaped the sixth and seventh-inning jams before Hunter Breault recorded a hold with a 1-2-3 eighth inning. The ninth went to Blaze Pontes, who worked around a two-out walk to notch his first save of the season.

For South Bend, shortstop Cristian Hernandez singled in the fifth inning to extend his on-base and hit streaks to 11 and 9 games, respectively. Rojas, meanwhile, pushed his on-base streak to 15 games and his hit streak to 5 games. On the other side, Lansing first baseman TJ Schofield-Sam singled twice, giving him eight straight games with a hit and six straight with multiple hits.

South Bend and Lansing will meet again at 7:05 PM on Thursday, as the Cubs will throw right-hander Connor Schultz against Lugnuts right-hander Grant Judkins.