It may be the dog days of summer, but it wasn’t the Lincoln Saltdogs’ day as the T-Bones welcomed them to Kansas City by handing them a loss on Tuesday night.
The T-Bones defeated the Saltdogs 6–3 at home for an upbeat opening to their second series in their lengthy homestand at T-Bones Stadium in Kansas City, Kansas.
The T-Bones started strong in the field, with the T-Bones’ fielding and pitching keeping the Saltdogs from getting past second base all the way until the sixth inning.
It was a scoreless battle for the first three innings, until the T-Bones blew it wide open in the fourth, making it all the way through their batting order and tying a season high for hits in an inning.
To start the fourth inning, Mason Davis hit a double to left field. Todd Cunningham followed that with a single that had him racing to first base just in time to put runners at first and third.
Colin Walsh came up to bat next and hit a ball right past the shortstop, giving Davis time to score one for the T-Bones and resulting in a 1-0 lead.
The inning still wasn’t over as Noah Perio Jr. came up to bat and hit a single that sent Todd Cunningham home and doubled the T-Bones’ lead at 2-0.
Adrian Nieto was then hit by a pitch from starter Joe Bircher to load the bases. New T-Bones player Alay Lago then drove in a run with an infield single and was followed by Dexter Kjerstad who hit a sacrifice fly to center to score another run to give KC a 4-0 lead. Keith Curcio drove in the fifth run in the inning for a 5-1 T-Bones advantage.
The Saltdogs weren’t able to answer in the fifth as pitcher Adam Bleday took over for the T-Bones.
A single for Perio Jr. and a double for Nieto put Kansas City back in a threatening position, but they couldn’t score as Lago flied out to center field for the third out.
Pasquale Mazzoccoli came in to pitch for the T-Bones in the sixth and walked the bases load.
The Saltdogs came back and scored a run on an RBI single from Randolph Oduber.
Another pitching change for the T-Bones brought Kevin Hill, who came in to try and stop the Saltdogs. Lincoln was able to score one more on a sacrifice fly from Dan Johnson before they were stopped by a diving catch from Kjerstad for the third out, making the score T-Bones 5 – Saltdogs 3.
After stretching it out and switching pitchers for Nick Lee in the seventh, the T-Bones struck back with Todd Cunningham hitting a solo home run for the T-Bones’ only run of the inning.
The eighth and ninth innings were quick work for the T-Bones’ defense, with Marcus Crescentini striking out one in the eighth and relief pitcher Cody Winiarski striking out the last batter for the win Kansas City 6 – Lincoln 3.
Aquino (1-0) picked up the win while Bircher (3-5) was charged with the loss. Winiarski picked up his sixth save as Kansas City moved to (40-21) while Lincoln dropped to (30-30).
The T-Bones will face the Saltdogs again at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday as they look to get their 41st win of the season. It will be National Hot Dog Day, with 50-cent hot dogs all night.
The game can be heard on the T-Bones Broadcast Network on MixLR at http://mixlr.com/t-bones-baseball/.
Individual tickets, season, group, mini-plans and nightly party suites are on sale and can be purchased by visiting the box office at T-Bones Stadium, calling the box office at 913-328-5618, or www.tbonesbaseball.com. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
– Story from T-Bones