It was a long night at GCS Ballpark in Sauget, Illinois as the Windy City ThunderBolts fell to the Gateway Grizzlies, 17-6 in game one of the three game series Friday night.
The Grizzlies started the damage with two outs in the first inning and never let up. ThunderBolt starter Joe Scumaci retired the first two hitters he faced, but the Grizzlies mounted a two-out, three-run rally after an error let Brandon Peters on base. Charlie Lisk belted his eleventh homer of the year, a two-run shot that put the Gateway team ahead to stay.
Jeremy Hamilton hit his first homer in the top of the second inning to make the score 3-1, but Gateway came right back with four runs in the bottom of the inning. The big blow in that inning was a Brandon Peters two-run homer. Once again, the Bolts fought back. They scored three times in the third to bring the score to 7-4. Kent Gerst’s two-run double started the scoring that inning and Gerst scored on a Ryan Basham groundout.
When Charlie Lisk hit his second home run of the game, though, a three-run shot in the bottom of the third, the feeling that it just might not be the ThunderBolts’ night began to pervade the ballpark.
Windy City had one more run in them, a two-run spurt in the fifth to close the gap to 12-6, but the Grizzlies scored in all but the sixth inning on their way to the dominant victory. Scumaci lasted just two innings in taking the loss (1-4). The winning pitcher was starter Mark Brackman (3-4), but it was the Gateway bullpen that was really impressive, churning out four shutout innings.
Tomorrow is another day for the ThunderBolts who send Andrew Werner (4-2) to the mound against David Goodenough (0-2). Game time at GCS Ballpark is 6:05 with the game audible on WXAV 88.3 fm and wxav.com.
