The ThunderBolts were defeated by the Lake Erie Crushers for the third straight day on Tuesday. Lake Erie used a five-run fourth inning to catapult to a 9-4 victory at All Pro freight Stadium.
The game started off great for the ThunderBolts. They took their first lead in the series in the top of the first when Guillermo Martinez, who had reached on a walk, scored on a two-out Tim Alberts infield single. Joe Scumaci then went to work for the Bolts. Making his second start of the season, Scumaci was great through three innings, allowing just one hit and striking out two.
Lake Erie went wild in the fourth, though. They used five hits, all singles, to put five runs on the board and take a four-run lead. They didn’t slow down against the Windy City bullpen. Wayne Bond knocked in two runs on a double in the fifth and the Crushers scored twice more in the sixth to take a 9-1 lead.
The ThunderBolt hitters showed some life in the seventh against Lake Erie’s bullpen. Donnie Ecker and Gilberto Mejia each walked to start the inning, then with one out, JT Restko and Ryne White came up with RBI singles and Alberts brought home Restko on a groundout. In all, the ThunderBolts scored three runs in the seventh to make it a 9-4 game. But that was as close as they would come with the game ending by the same score. Esmelvin Jimenez (3-2) picked up the win, going six strong innings and Scumaci (0-2) took the loss.
Windy City will begin a nine-game home stand on Wednesday night when the Oakland County Cruisers come calling for the second time in a week. The starting pitcher in game one of the series for the ThunderBolts will be Andrew Werner (3-2) who picked up a win over Oakland County in his last start. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05. The game can be heard on sportsjuice.com.
