Shaky start costly for Bulls
Some early, and plentiful, errors handed the Lethbridge Bulls a deficit they couldn’t overcome. The Bulls were downed 15-10 by the Brooks Bombers in a highscoring affair during Western Major Baseball League play Thursday night at Spitz Stadium.
The hosts were able to close the deficit with eight runs between the sixth and eighth innings, but getting rocked with eight runs backed by seven errors in the first two innings handed Brooks an 8-0 lead on their way to the road win as the Bulls fall to 19-15.
The Bombers were quick out of the gate when Nicola Mislinski singled and advanced to second on an error to right field, took third on a passed ball and scored on an error to shortstop before the Bombers third batter took the plate.
Brooks went up 2-0 when Drew Duncan scored on an error to the catcher, whose pickoff attempt at second wound up in centre field, and the visitors added to their lead when David Janes scored on a single to shortstop.
Then with two runners on and still none out, Griffin Robinson sent a three-run homer over left field for a 60 lead
The Bombers batted around in the first and added one more run when Matt Zanutto scored on an error to first for a 7-0 lead that ended Bulls starter Trace Francis’ night
With Brooks up 10-0 after two-anda-half innings, the Bulls got some run production when Alex Bishop singled to right field and scored on a Blake MacDonald singled to centre field to make it 10-1.
The Bombers added one more in the fourth to go up 11-1, but Lethbridge made it 11-2 when Cole Hadley scored on a Brock Frentzel putout.
The Bulls cut the Bombers lead to 13-8 after seven innings with threerun sixth and seventh innings.
In the sixth inning, Darius Carter scored on a double from Frentzel and Brett Semeniuk singled to score Hadley and Frentzel.
Frentzel added another RBI in the seventh, singling in Carter before Hadley plated a run on a single from Semeniuk and Frentzel scored on a passed ball.
Brooks added two more runs in the eighth, but the Bulls rounded out the scoring with a pair in their half of the eighth.
Jesse Hilyard hit his fourth home run of the season and MacDonald scored on a passed ball.
The Bombers outhit the Bulls 1816.
Hitting leadoff, Semeniuk was 2for-6 with three RBI, while Frentzel hit 2-for-5 with two runs scored and three RBI.
Hilyard was 2-for-6 with one run scored and an RBI, MacDonald was 2for-4 with one run scored and an RBI, Carter was 2-for-4 with two runs scored and Hadley was 2-for-4 and scored three runs.
Francis was tagged for the loss for the Bulls.
The Bulls are back at Spitz Stadium tonight for a double-header with the Medicine Hat Mavericks.
The first game is at 6 p.m. and is makeup game which will start in the second inning with the Mavericks up 1-0.
The second game will be seven innings.