Spinners start homestand with 5-3 win over Hudson Valley

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Spinners start homestand with 5-3 win over Hudson Valley

Coming off a road trip, in which the Lowell Spinners went 4-2, the team returned to Lalacheur Park to begin a six-game homestand against the Hudson Valley Renegades (23-13). The last time the two teams met in Lowell, the Renegades left happy after taking two out of three.

On Tuesday night, the Spinners (21-16) got this series off to a better start with a 5-3 victory.

Lowell’s offensive attack wasn’t much with eight hits of which only one was for extra-bases. All of their run-scoring damage was done early in the ballgame as Spinners Manager Cory Wimberly said afterward, “this team finds a way to keep doing it”.

Tuesday night’s starter, Brian Brown, was seeking his first win of the season. He would give himself a chance at it by allowing only one earned run. His downfall would be he did not get through the required five innings to qualified for the “W”.

Hudson Valley countered with Easton McGee, who last time he faced the Spinners on the road, was very good in beating them.

This time Lowell would get to McGee early scoring three runs in the second inning. The inning started with a one-out walk to Tyler Esplin. That was followed by a hit batsman to Jonathan Ortega. Korby Batesole would load the bases by singling to left field. The base hit extended his hit streak to ten games.

Grant Williams would knock the first run of the game in with a fielder choice, then “Mr. Everything”, Jarren Durran, ripped a double to right field to plate two more runs. It would give the Spinners a 3-0 advantage. The double would be his league-leading 15th extra-base hit of the season.

Given a three-run lead to work with, Brown would give one back to Hudson Valley in the third. A leadoff double by number nine hitter Bryce Brown was followed up by a single to left field by leadoff hitter Ford Proctor. One out later with runners at first and third, Brown gave up a run-scoring base hit to Tyler Frank to make the score 3-1 Lowell.

The Spinners would get that run back and added one more in their half of the third inning. Three straight singles against McGee would load the bases. Esplin would bring the fourth run of the night home on a sacrifice fly to center field. Then, Ortega reached on a fielder’s choice to first base to give the Spinners a 5-1 lead after three.

Brown (four innings, four hits, one earned run, one walk, and three strikeouts) would give way to Taylor Ahearn in the fifth. All Ahearn would do is pitch three hitless and scoreless innings for Lowell striking out three and walking only one.

Hudson Valley did make the game interesting in the eighth facing Francisco Lopes-Soto. Tanner Dodson doubled to right field and Frank would then reach base via a base on balls. With the NYPL leading RBI man at the plate in Chris Betts, Lopes-Soto would uncork a wild pitch that Spinners catcher Kole Cottam could not find. It allowed Dodson to score from second base with the Renegades second run of the night. A sacrifice fly to left by Betts (25th rbi for him), scored Frank. That would cut the Lowell lead to 5-3 after eight.

In the ninth, Lowell called upon Kris Jackson to close it out and that’s just what he did to pick up save number two on the year. Final score: Lowell 5 Hudson Valley 3.

The win goes to Ahearn now 2-1, and the loss goes to McGee (4innings, six hits, five earned runs, one walk, and four strikeouts). He is now 3-3.

Lowell, which has now won twelve of their last fourteen games, will look to keep it going on Wednesday night vs the Renegades, with first pitch scheduled for 6:30 pm.