(TRAVERSE CITY, MI) – Brent Solich pitched the first complete game of his professional career and the ThunderBolts broke an 11-game losing streak on travel days with a 7-1 victory over the Traverse City Beach Bums at Wuerfel Park. The win lowered the Bolts’ magic number to two.
The ThunderBolts struck first with a run in the first inning. Brandon Anderson and Gilberto Mejia each singled and Ryan Basham’s double play-grounder knocked in Anderson.
Traverse City answered with an Andrew Franco RBI single in the second, but that would be all the offense that the Beach Bums could muster against Solich. They had just six hits, two of them coming with two outs in the ninth and never seriously threatened to score after the second.
Windy City broke the game open in the fourth. They began the inning with three straight singles from Zach Aakhus, Jeremy Hamilton and Mike Mooney, Mooney’s knocking in Aakhus. After a Michael Torres fielder’s choice and a Jim Calderone walk, Nick Kuroczko’s sac fly made it 3-1 in favor of the ThunderBolts. Anderson’s two-run triple then chased Traverse City starter Michael Moore from the game. Against Bryan Banes, Mejia doubled home Anderson for a 6-1 lead.
The offense went silent from there, but they didn’t need anything else in support of Solich who was fantastic. He struck out four and walked just one in the win, improving to 8-6 on the year.
The Bolts did get one more insurance run in the eighth, when Calderone doubled, the first extra-base hit of his career, and scored on a passed ball and a wild pitch.
Moore, who was chased from the game in the fourth, fell to 8-6 with the loss and dropped the Bums three games behind the Bolts for first place in the East.
Richard Barrett (7-2) will start for the Bolts on Wednesday night at Wuerfel Park against Kevin Reese (9-9).The game will begin at 6:05 CDT and can be heard on WXAV 88.3 fm and wxav.com. A Wednesday win for the ThunderBolts would clinch their fourth consecutive trip to the Frontier League postseason.
