SOUTH BEND, INDIANA (May 10, 2021) — In their first four-hour affair of the new campaign on 7 May, the River Bandits moved back to .500 on the season thanks to six runs in the first third of the game as they defeated the South Bend Cubs 8-6 at Four Winds Field.
Despite scoring one less run than they did the previous night in a 9-8 win, Quad Cities tripled their hit total with twelve on Thursday, including Tyler Gentry’s first double of the year, which scored Jimmy Govern in opening frame to take a 1-0 lead against Cubs’ starer Derek Casey.
In the second, the back-to-back walks of William Hancock and Nathan Eaton set the stage for Logan Porter, who loaded the bases with a line-drive to right field. After Govern reached on an error that also allowed Hancock to score, Michael Massey sent a ball into right field to score Eaton before Vinnie Pasquantino earned his most-painful RBI of the season after Casey hit him with a pitch, granting clearance for Porter to stroll in from third with the new 4-0 lead.
A sloppy bottom-half from Bandits’ starter Anthony Veneziano, which included three hits, a walk, and a passed ball on Hancock, gave South Bend two runs and chased the righthander from his High-A début after 51 pitches.
However, in the third, the offense picked up right where it had left off as Govern built upon his hot start with a two-run single to score Eaton and Porter, who had earlier reached on two of Casey’s four walks, elevating the lead to 6-2.
Now into his bullpen early, manager Chris Widger got a much-needed 1.1 innings from Jonah Dipoto, who allowed just one base on balls in his second scoreless appearance of the season before Dante Biasi took over the game in his 2021 début.
After allowing two harmless walks in a scoreless fourth, the former Burlington Royal faced the minimum through the fifth and the sixth and watched his team ensure the lead with a bases-loaded walk from Porter and an RBI double from Govern spread out over the two frames.
Mitch Ellis continued his struggles against the Cubs after surrendering six hits and four earned over 1.1 innings before giving way to Adam Lukas, who stopped the bleeding at 8-6 and secured the Bandits’ win in the ninth after retiring South Bend in order for his first save of the season.
Biasi (1-0) earned the win for Quad Cities as the only Bandits pitcher to work beyond two innings, while Casey absorbed the loss for the Cubs thanks to five hits, four walks, and four earned over three innings of work.
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 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.
