BURLINGTON, IOWA (August 1, 2019) — The Quad Cities River Bandits trailed the Burlington Bees 6-0 and had not registered a hit when the seventh inning began on Thursday night at Community Field. A furious comeback, capped by Alex Holderbach’s go-ahead ninth-inning home-run, propelled the Bandits to a 7-6 victory in one of their most impressive wins of the 2019 season.
Quad Cities (22-17, 65-40) first hit of the night was Michael Wielansky’s lead-off triple in the top of the seventh. Cesar Salazar followed with a ground-out to the right side of the infield to score Wielansky and put the Bandits on the scoreboard. At that point, they still trailed 6-1.
In the eighth, the Bandits pulled a little closer. Ramiro Rodriguez opened the frame by working a free pass and went to third on a single by Holderbach. A low pitch bounced past the catcher Harrison Wenson, allowing Rodriguez to race home from third for the first run of the inning. With Holderbach also moving into scoring-position, Carlos Machado’s sharp single up the middle scored another run and closed the gap to 6-3.
That set the stage for the dramatic series of events in the ninth inning. Austin Dennis doubled against Mayky Perez with one out, but the Burlington reliever struck out Freudis Nova for the second out of the inning. Down to their final out, Rodriguez drew a walk with Dennis, scoring on a couple of wild pitches during his at-bat. The tying run came to the plate and Grae Kessinger extended the game by splitting the gap in left-center with a hard line-drive for an RBI double, and suddenly the tying run was in scoring-position. Holderbach stepped in and smacked a line-drive over the left-field fence to complete the comeback. The home run was his fifth of the season and the third that ended up being the game-winning hit.
Burlington (15-24, 54-55) took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a pair of two-out RBI singles by Francisco Del Valle and Nonie Williams off of Bandits starting-pitcher Lupe Chavez. Chavez ended up surrendering just those two runs on four hits over 5.0 innings. The right-hander recorded seven strikeouts.
The Bees widened the gap by sending ten hitters to the plate and scoring four runs against reliever Layne Henderson in the sixth inning. Reyneldy Rosario bounced a two-run double just inside the first-base bag and the next batter Livan Soto plated two more with his flare into shallow left-field.
The win belonged to fellow reliever Devin Conn, who tossed 2.0 scoreless innings with four strike-outs. The three River Bandits pitchers combined to strike out 14 Burlington hitters in the game.
Burlington outhit the River Bandits 10-6 in the contest. Holderbach was the only member of the Bandits lineup to collect more than one hit, finishing 2-4 with the home run and two RBI. Wielansky’s triple was his third in the last two games. Williams and Connor Fitzsimons guided the Bees attack with two each.
Quad Cities will try to sweep the four-game series on Friday night in Burlington. First pitch is set for 6:30PM at Community Field. RHP Felipe Tejada (6-0, 2.50) will put his undefeated record on the line in a meeting with Bees LHP Hector Yan (4-3, 3.46).
Quad Cities (R-H-E): 7-6-0
Burlington (R-H-E): 6-10-0
Win: Conn (2-1)
Loss: Perez (0-5)
Save:
HR: Quad Cities: Alex Holderbach (5, 9th inning, 1 on base)
HR: Burlington: None
All River Bandits games are broadcast on 1170 K-BOB and TuneIn Radio. Home games are also available with video on MiLB.TV.
