Persistent Wingnuts wear down Sioux Falls starter, win 7-2
After the Wingnuts walked twice during Tuesday’s fifth inning with two outs and failed to score, momentum hung in the balance.
It would either go to Sioux Falls starter Jeremy Strawn, who worked his way out of mild trouble to maintain his scoreless outing, or it would swing toward the Wingnuts, who were once again on the verge of the breakthrough.
Strawn was unable to escape again. The Wingnuts scored three runs in the sixth – two on a double by Joash Brodin – and added four in the seventh against Sioux Falls relievers in a 7-2 win at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.
The Wingnuts (18-12) have won two in a row after a four-game losing streak that dropped them to second place in the American Association South division, and they scored 20 runs in a pair of victories against Sioux Falls.
Strawn showed signs of cracking in the fifth inning when he threw 23 pitches, and the Wingnuts pounced an inning later.
“Once you see that, you’ve got to step on him,” Brodin said. “He was cruising pretty much the first four innings, and in the (sixth) we scored three runs. It’s always nice to get into the (bullpen), especially when a guy was doing as well as he was the first four innings. It’s nice to get him out of there and see someone else.”
The Wingnuts left runners in scoring position twice during the first four innings, when only Brodin and David Espinosa reached base.
Strawn briefly regained control after the two two-out walks, retiring the next two batters on groundouts, before Alberto Gonzalez’s one-out triple got Wichita rolling in the sixth.
Espinosa walked and Taylor Oldham, who entered in the fifth after first baseman Dustin Geiger was ejected, singled just over the head of shortstop Jerome Pena. Brodin followed with a double down the left-field line, bringing home Espinosa and Oldham.
Before the fifth, Strawn had retired nine of the previous 10 hitters and the one who reached, Espinosa, was caught stealing. The Wingnuts were looking for anything to slow him down, and the walks provided the disruption.
“If we could find a way (we wanted) to get a couple going early on and get him out of his rhythm,” Wingnuts manager Kevin Hooper said. “That’s the whole thing – when a guy is getting quick innings, you’ve got to mess with his rhythm somehow, and we were able to do that finally.”
Strawn’s long fifth inning and the Wingnuts’ productive sixth pushed him to 98 pitches and hastened his exit. The Wingnuts led 3-2 when Sioux Falls’ bullpen took over, and three seventh-inning relievers were unable to keep it close.
Jayce Ray’s RBI triple scored Wichita’s first run in the seventh, but the most damaging to Sioux Falls’ chances was a throwing error by catcher Tyler Shover, after a bunt by Oldham, that skipped down the right-field line and allowed two runs to score.
A wild pitch scored another Wingnuts run, and suddenly Wichita was discovering the good fortune that escaped the team during the recent losing streak.
“We feel like we didn’t get the breaks all four of those,” Brodin said. “We were in it, we had opportunities. We just didn’t come through when we needed to. It was definitely nice (Monday) to put up a big number.”
Scott Kuzminsky’s completed seven innings, his longest and perhaps most important start in his first season with the Wingnuts.
Anthony Capra, who started on Opening Day for Wichita, signed with the Mexican League and left the team on Monday. The Wingnuts are expected to sign former Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Scott Richmond to fill Capra’s rotation spot, but Kuzminsky needed a firmer grip on his.
Kuzminsky allowed eight runs on 11 hits on June 18 in a loss to Gary-Southshore, but on Tuesday he survived a home run by Jason Repko in the sixth and R.J. Perucki’s RBI single in the sixth seventh to eliminate Sioux Falls’ hopes for a rally.
“The solo (home run in the seventh) got the one, so other than that he was crisp again,” Hooper said. “He had a letdown in Gary. I don’t know what that was all about. It’s kind of like he was feeling for his stuff, wasn’t that bulldog, being aggressive, going right at guys.
“Tonight, it seems like he was doing that again.”
Sioux Falls | Wichita | ||||||||
ab | r | h | bi | ab | r | h | bi | ||
Grayson rf | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Mittelstdt 3b | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Pena ss | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Gonzalez ss | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Humphries lf | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | Espinosa rf | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
Bergin 1b | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Geiger 1b | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Stock dh | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Oldham 1b | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Wing 2b | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Brodin lf | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Perucki 3b | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Padgett dh | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Shover c | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Nester c | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Repko cf | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Dean c | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hernandez 2b | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | |||||
Ray cf | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Total | 34 | 2 | 9 | 2 | Total | 32 | 7 | 9 | 4 |
Sioux Falls | 000 | 001 | 100 | — | 2 |
Wichita | 000 | 003 | 40x | — | 7 |
E— Shover. DP— Wichita 1. LOB— Sioux Falls 5, Wichita 6. 2B— Humphries, Strock, Espinosa, Brodin. 3B — Gonzalez, Ray. HR — Repko (3). SB —Brodin. CS —Grayson, Espinosa.
Sioux Falls | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
Strawn L,2-4 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
Minnich | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Ferrell | 1/3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
McVey | 2/3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Johnson | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Wichita | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
Kuzminsky W,2-1 | 7 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Yevoli | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Mincey | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
WP — Ferrell, Kuzminsky.
T— 2:28. A— 4,291.
This story was originally published June 23, 2015 at 10:53 PM with the headline "Persistent Wingnuts wear down Sioux Falls starter, win 7-2."