BELOIT, WISCONSIN (June 23, 2021) — Fresh off of their first sweep of the season, the Quad Cities River Bandits saw their season-best seven-game winning streak come to an end on Tuesday, as they fell to the Beloit Snappers by a score of 4-3 at Pohlman Field.
In his second 2021 start against Beloit, Asa Lacy stranded a pair of singles in the opening inning, but surrendered the lead on a 1-2 pitch when Griffin Conine’s solo home-run in the second made it 1-0 Snappers and moved the outfielder into first in the High-A Central in long balls.
After Antonino Velez retired the Bandits in order for the third straight inning, the Snappers used a lead-off single from Connor Scott, a double from Will Bandfield, and an RBI ground-out from Kameron Misner to move the score to 2-0 in the third.
Quad Cities finally got a man on in the fourth, as Nick Loftin and Vinnie Pasquantino both singled in the inning, but it was Lacy who again allowed a run, this time on a run-scoring single from Ricky Aracena that made it 3-0.
The fifth inning again saw the visitors out of the run column and also yielded the fourth-straight one-run inning for Beloit as Troy Johnston’s RBI single touched up newly entered Christian Chamberlain for a tally after the righty allowed three of the first four men to reach in the inning.
Loftin eventually got his team on the board in the top of the sixth with a two-bagger to left field that scored Jerison Guzman to cut the Snappers’ lead to 4-1.
Chamberlain stranded a leadoff single with a strikeout and a pair of flyouts in the bottom of the and also faced the minimum in the seventh to allow Pasquantino’s RBI single and an error to bring the contest to 4-2, before a few pitches later, a passed ball allowed Pasquantino to score and make it a one-run game.
However, in the ninth, Justin Evans entered the game for the Snappers and earned his second save of the year by stranding the tying run with a strikeout of John Rave to end the game.
Velez (2-0) got his second win of the season after crafting five scoreless innings with five strikeouts, while Lacy (1- 4) took the loss on four innings of three-run ball and six punchouts.
With an open spot in the rotation due to the promotion of Angel Zerpa, Noah Murdock (0-0, 13.50) will make his first start of the season for the River Bandits against Zach McCambley (2-2, 3.07) who toes the rubber for the Snappers on Wednesday at 6:35PM CDT at Pohlman Field.
ABOUT THE BANDITS: The 2021 season marks the River Bandits’ first year as a new Advanced-A major-league affiliate. As such, the team will be offering higher-quality baseball than has ever before been played in the Quad Cities. Additionally, the Bandits will welcome a new MLB affiliate to the Quad Cities, the Kansas City Royals. The River Bandits anchor the Quad Cities sports-market, which The Sports Business Journal named the top minor-league sports-market in the country in 2015 and second-best minor-league market in its 2017 follow-up ranking. In 2015, 2017, and again in 2019, the River Bandits earned Ballpark Digest’s award for “Best Charitable Works” in Minor League Baseball, the only club to win that coveted award three times. For more information, visit www.riverbandits.com or contact General Manager Joe Kubly at (563) 333-2768.
