Tim Alberts was the hero Thursday night at Standard Bank Stadium as the ThunderBolts beat the Traverse City Beach Bums 7-6 to salvage the final game of the three game set.
For the second straight day, Traverse City benefited from a rundown. With men at first and third in the third inning, Michael Diaz singled to right scoring Andrew Franco from third. When Diaz caught in a rundown between first and second, Jason Codiroli came all the way around to score.
The ThunderBolts evened things up in the bottom of the fourth when the first four men reached safely on three singles and a walk. RBIs came from J.T. Restko and Tim Alberts.
After Traverse City retook the lead in the fifth inning with two runs, Windy City took their first lead in the bottom of the seventh. Dan Jordan and Guillermo Martinez started the rally with walks. They scored on a sacrifice fly from Kent Gerst and a Ryne White single. Gilberto Mejia also singled and scored on a Restko single.
The lead was shortlived, though, as Traverse City gained the lead once again in the eighth by scoring two runs on back-to-back Brandon Garner wild pitches. Windy City tied it up again in the bottom of the eighth but failed to take the lead when Michael Torres was thrown out trying to score on a Mejia flyout to left.
In the bottom of the ninth, Kent Gerst led off with an infield single. After he was moved to second on a Ryne White sacrifice, Tim Alberts came up and lined a 3-2 pitch into the left-centerfield gap, scoring Gerst and giving the ThunderBolts a 7-6 win. It was already the third walkoff for the Bolts this season. Nick Hall was the winner, improving to 2-0. David Slovak took the loss falling to 1-1.
Windy City heads to the road for the first time on Friday night. They’ll take on the Washington Wild Things at CONSOL Energy Park. Gametime is 6:05 CDT and it will be aired on SportsJuice.com with pregame coverage to begin at 5:45.
