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EVANSVILLE, IN – Mike Recchia struck out a career-high 16 men in his second complete game shutout of the year as the ThunderBolts defeated the Evansville Otters 2-0 at Bosse Field Monday night.

The ThunderBolts scored a first inning run when Bob Glover walked and Mike Torres singled to start the game. Chris Wade hit a hard grounder to third that Nick Schwaner mishandled and Glover came in to score on the error.

After that, the game was dominated by pitching. Evansville’s Matt Crim retired nine straight after Wade reached and didn’t allow Torres to score from third in the first.

Recchia allowed six baserunners in the first three innings on two singles, three walks and a hit batter, but Evansville left them all on base and didn’t get many more chances afterwards.

After allowing a two-out walk to Runey Davis in the third, Recchia retired 18 of the next 19 hitters, with only a hit batter interrupting his flow.

The ThunderBolts added a big insurance run in the seventh. C.J. Gillman doubled and stole third. With two outs, Torres reached on an error allowing Gillman to score, giving the Bolts a 2-0 lead.

Recchia came out to pitch the ninth despite having thrown nearly 130 pitches and it proved to be the right decision as he struck out the first two hitters in the ninth. After Luis Uribe picked up an infield single, Recchia finished his shutout in style, striking out Billy Killian. It was the only inning of the game in which he struck out the side, but he had at least one in every inning and two five of nine frames.

With the three-hit shutout, Recchia becomes the first Frontier Leaguer this year with two shutouts. He improved his record to 5-2. Despite allowing just two unearned runs over seven innings, Crim (0-6) took the loss.

The ThunderBolts season-long nine-game road trip continues on Tuesday as they begin a three-game series at GCS Ballpark with the Gateway Grizzlies. Game one will feature Stephen Sauer (4-2, 3.41) pitching for the Bolts against Gateway’s Paul Tremlin (2-0, 2.25). The game begins at 7:05 p.m. CDT and the broadcast can be heard on WXAV, 88.3 fm and wxav.com.

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