DAVENPORT, IOWA (June 3, 2019) — Quad Cities River Bandits pitcher Luis Garcia has been named the Midwest League Pitcher of the Week for the week of May 27-June 2. He is the second River Bandits pitcher to earn a weekly award from the league, joining Shawn Dubin.
Garcia made the most out of his one appearance on the mound this week. On Saturday night in Burlington, he tossed 6.0 scoreless innings to earn the win in the Bandits 1-0 victory over the Bees. Garcia matched his career-high with 10 strikeouts in the performance.
For the season, Garcia owns a 4-0 record and earned-run average of 2.93. The right-hander has collected 60 strike-outs in 43.0 innings of work and is limiting opposing hitters to a .153 batting average. Garcia has recorded at least five strike-outs in each of his nine appearances.
The Astros signed the 22-year-old Garcia out of Venezuela as an international free-agent in 2017. He also spent most of the 2018 season with the River Bandits, going 7-2 with a 2.48 ERA in 19 games. He owns a career 2.26 earned run average in professional baseball.
The River Bandits open a three-game series against the Peoria Chiefs at 6:35PM on Tuesday night at Dozer Park in Peoria. That series was moved from Modern Woodmen Park due to flooding. The Bandits are scheduled to return home on Friday, June 7, to open a series against the Kane County Cougars.
ABOUT THE BANDITS: The 2019 season marks the River Bandits’ seventh year as the Class-A affiliate of the Houston Astros and the twelfth-anniversary season of regaining the River Bandits moniker, which was voted a top-8 nickname in all of Minor League Baseball in 2015. The River Bandits anchor the Quad Cities sports market, which The Sports Business Journal in their latest rankings named one of the top-two minor-league sports market in the country. Each year, the River Bandits donate three annual all-tuition-paid college scholarships, a value of approximately $85,000, as part of the Bandit Scholars Program, which has been in place since 2009. Charitable contributions surpassed $600,000 in 2018, including a $100,000 cash donation to Genesis Health Systems; in 2015 and again in 2017, Ballpark Digest awarded the Bandits its “Best Charity Campaign” of the year, making the River Bandits the only team to win that coveted award twice.
