Nothing is ever easy in the Prospect League.<\/p>\n
Entering the ninth inning of Wednesday night\u2019s battle with the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp, the Burlington Bees enjoyed a comfortable seven-run advantage. Just three outs needed. Plenty of insurance runs.<\/p>\n
Easy, right?<\/p>\n
Wrong.<\/p>\n
The Pistol Shrimp went for six runs, including a grand slam home run from Dawson Szymanski, who came into pinch hit earlier and remained in the game.<\/p>\n
But the Bees\u2019 pitching tightened up just in time and Burlington improved to 11-13 on the season, with a 12-11 nail-biting victory at Community Field.<\/p>\n
The Pistol Shrimp slipped to 6-17.<\/p>\n
It was a necessary win for the Bees as they are currently in the midst of a seven-game homestand. Burlington trails Clinton by 3 \u00bd games for the first-half division title.<\/p>\n
The Bees received a quality performance from Troy Peltz, who went 2-for-4 with four RBIs.<\/p>\n
Burlington cultivated six walks in the bottom of the fourth and a 403-foot solo home run from Peltz as part of a seven-run inning that featured 10 batters. Peltz added an additional run batted in with a sacrifice fly in the inning that scored Jace Figuereo, who had walked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a semi-feeling that Troy would have a great night,\u201d Burlington manager Owen Oreskovich said. \u201cHe was locked in during BP today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peltz agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I have to say that in BP I was really focused,\u201d Peltz said. \u201cI was just repeating in my head over and over what I had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each team ended the night with 10 hits.<\/p>\n
Quinn Wilfong remained undefeated on the season, earning his third win as he went five innings, surrendering four hits and three walks.<\/p>\n
The Bees scored seven times in the fourth inning with less than two outs.<\/p>\n
In the top of the fifth, the Pistol Shrimp loaded the bases, but PJ Hamel threw a dart to Adam Kudronowicz to pick off Tyler Reyburn to preserve an 8-4 lead.<\/p>\n
Hamel\u2019s defensive plays were contained within a great night at the plate, as he also smashed a solo home run, added a double and knocked in a pair — all from the No. 9 position in the lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about where to put him in the lineup before the game,\u201d Oreskovich said. \u201cWe decided to let PJ get in there and he had a good night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pistol Shrimp struck first and furious, cultivating a pair of extra-base hits into a 3-0 lead after two innings. Ximi Baftiri led off with a walk, before Joey Ireland reached on a broken-bat single. Second baseman Joey Ireland then went to the opposite field to the right-field wall to plate Baftiri and Ireland on a triple. Carter Brown then went deep to left field for a double to score Ireland.<\/p>\n
Illinois Valley added another run in the third as Bees’ Wilfong balked. One pitch later, Wilfong got Baftiri to ground weakly to short, but the damage had already been done. Chase Roberts scored the run after drawing a one-out walk.<\/p>\n
Burlington answered in the bottom of the frame with a solo home\u00a0 run courtesy of Hamel.<\/p>\n
But, Illinois Valley minimized the damage with a brilliant stabbing catch in center field by Brayden Foster, that may have saved a run as the Bees\u2019 Figuereo had reached on an infield single.<\/p>\n
Illinois Valley pitcher Beau Raikes then induced Lucas Krebs into a ground out to second.<\/p>\n
Despite the glossy offensive numbers, giving up six runs in the ninth cast a shadow over the game that the Bees will have to learn from.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just had to focus a little more,\u201d Oreskovich said. \u201cI thought our focus left us when the bad stuff started happening. We can\u2019t let that happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peltz noted that when times get rough, you have to have faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to believe in your guys,\u201d Peltz said. \u201cYou have to hope that the ball goes to you and that you can make a play. We have learned a lot about ourselves and our team, knowing that the second half is coming, this game could be a turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing is ever easy in the Prospect League. Entering the ninth inning of Wednesday night\u2019s battle with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2323,2314,2317,2313,86166,91507,2413,91508,10617,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,16438,1039],"class_list":["post-735118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-events","tag-baseball-finals","tag-baseball-games","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-bee","tag-burlington-bees","tag-champion-seasons-in-major-league-baseball","tag-illinois-valley-pistol-shrimp","tag-ireland","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-prospect-league","tag-world-series"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}