Aiken rocked by South Bend

Over the long haul of a 140-game baseball season, disappointment and uplift can be ladled out in equal measures. Consider the case of Captains pitcher Brady Aiken.

The 20-year-old left-hander has had plenty of the former this season as he continues his comeback from Tommy John surgery in 2015.

Through the season’s first three months and 17 starts, Aiken was 1-10 with a 4.39 ERA. While the ERA was in the realm of acceptable, Aiken was struggling with control and velocity.

Then came a three-game stretch during which Aiken gave some hint of why the Indians took him with the 17th overall pick in the first round of the June 2015 draft. He posted victories in each of those starts, giving up five runs on 16 hits in 16 innings. The totals of eight strikeouts and 10 walks still were out of kilter, but Aiken was getting the job done with traffic on the basepaths and giving his team chances to win.

Just when it seemed Aiken was feeling the uplift and turning around his season, he took two steps back toward disappointment.

Against the West Michigan Whitecaps on July 30, he yielded seven runs on eight hits in 2 2/3 innings and took the loss.

He had another shaky outing and notched another loss Aug. 4 at Classic Park as the South Bend (Ind.) Cubs routed the Captains, 15-9.

Aiken’s statistical line was unsightly as he surrendered six runs, all earned, on eight hits in 2 1/3 innings. His record slipped to 4-12 while his ERA rose to 5.06.

His early exit forced Captains manager Larry Day to go to his bullpen early and often as five relievers toed the rubber before the final out was recorded three hours and 17 minutes after

Aiken threw the first pitch.

It was a deflating loss all too familiar to a team that, the same as Aiken, has experienced far more disappointment than uplift in a season heading down the homestretch.

Having absorbed a threegame sweep at the hands of the Cubs, the Captains clipped to 18-22 in the second half of the Midwest League season. Their overall record is 45-64.

While there was no painting a happy face on their latest loss, the Captains did give the fans something to cheer about as they slammed three home runs. The last, a two-run blast over the right-field wall by Emmanuel Tapia in the bottom of the ninth, was the MWL-leading 24th for Tapia and 119th of the season for the Captains.

Tapia now is within four home runs of the team record set in 2004 by Ryan Goleski. The team total of 119 matches the previous record set in 2014.