TRAVERSE CITY, MI – Scott Dunn pitched six strong innings for the Traverse City Beach Bums and retired the final ten batters he faced as the Beach Bums defeated the ThunderBolts 3-1 at Wuerfel Park Saturday night.
Traverse City began the scoring in the second inning when Jose Vargas singled and later scored on a wild pitch.
The ThunderBolts were quick to respond. Chris Wade tripled to begin the third and crossed the plate one batter later, when Brandon Anderson picked up a sacrifice fly. The Bolts then got back-to-back singles from Mike Torres and Zach Aakhus, but Dunn got Jason James to ground into an inning ending double play to end the threat.
Traverse City took the lead for keeps in the fourth. They got three straight singles to begin the frame, with Jeff Flagg’s scoring Matt Brown. They had a chance for more with two on and no outs, but Chris Kay lined into a double play to end the inning at 2-1.
The final run was scored in the sixth. Vargas again led off with a single and scored on a Tom Zebroski fielder’s choice grounder.
The ThunderBolts had one more good scoring chance. With Jeff Cinadr pitching in the eighth, Wade hit a leadoff double and Anderson walked. Torres bunted them both into scoring position, but Scott Mueller came on and struck out Aakhus before James grounded out to end the threat. Mueller pitched a perfect ninth to seal the victory.
Dunn Picked up the win, improving to 8-3 and Bryant Cotton allowed three runs over 5.1 innings to take the loss (6-9). Mueller earned his 19th save.
With the loss, the Bolts fell 3.5 games behind Lake Erie for the playoffs with just seven games remaining.
The series concludes Sunday evening at Wuerfel Park. The ThunderBolts will send Matt Jernstad (7-9) to the mound against Traverse City’s David Deminsky (4-3). Game time is set for 4:05 and the contest can be heard on WXAV, 88.3 fm and wxav.com.
