Toledo Mud Hens 4, Iowa Cubs 2 (box)
The Mud Hens came out swinging. Well, actually, Justyn-Henry Malloy walked to lead off, but you know what I mean. Akil Baddoo also walked as Cubs starter Jaxon Wiggins reached eight balls in a row. Wiggins threw Eduardo Valencia some strikes, but that ended up being a mistake. He crushed a three-run homer (409 ft) to establish an early lead.
Not a bad start to the game. Valencia remains the hottest
hitter in the system.
Pitching and defense would dominate the rest of the contest. Both teams struck in the fifth. Toledo made it a 4-0 thanks to a leadoff double from Malloy and some base-stealing antics from Baddoo — after a base hit.
Both of Iowa’s runs came against Troy Watson, but the 28-year-old righthander still finished the day with a quality start. He only struck out two, while walking one, but 5.2 innings of two-run work is always a good thing.
Watson worked quickly, needing just 16 pitches in the first two innings. No one made solid contact the first time through the order, and he got through the top half a second time before giving up a leadoff home run to James Triantos in the fifth. Watson left a fastball up in the zone, and Triatos jumped all over it.
Parker Chavez tripled off Watson later in the fifth, signaling some fatigue. Chavez scored on an RBI single from Nicky Lopez a couple of batters later. Watson almost got through the sixth, but Dixon Machada (old friend alert) doubled off him with two outs. Triantos reached to trigger a first-and-third situation, and RJ Petit took over.
Petit did his job through 1.1 frames, working around a two-out walk and single in the seventh. Woo-Suk Go got the two-inning save, allowing just one baserunner on a walk. It’s not every day a pitching staff finishes off a nine-inning win with 136 combined pitches, but three strikeouts and three walks lead to a pretty bang-bang kind of day.
Oh, there were some goose shenanigans, too. In my experience, they are feisty little fellows.
