The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Lake Erie defeats Gateway, leads division
Crushers remain atop the standings in the East Division of the Frontier League
The Lake Erie Crushers strengthened their hold on first place in the East Division by defeating the Gateway Grizzlies at Sprenger Stadium on Aug. 14. Adam Schabel has the details from the win.
The Lake Erie Crushers continued their march toward the playoffs on Aug. 14 by defeating the Gateway Grizzlies by 4-3.
The Crushers got off to a hot start by taking a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on a two-run home run by right fielder Logan Farrar.
Shortstop Emmanuel Marrero, who leads the Crushers with a .298 batting average, singled in the at-bat prior to Farrar’s home run.
Lake Erie extended their lead to 3-0 in the first on a solo homer by first baseman
Dale Burdick.
Gateway cut the Crushers’ lead to 3-1 in the top of the second and tied the game at three in the fifth inning on a two-run home run by first baseman Connor Owings.
Lake Erie struck back in the bottom of the sixth inning by taking a 4-3 lead on a Burdick ground rule RBI double, which scored Marrero.
Burdick performed well as he went 2-for-4 with a solo home run and an RBI double.
“Manny (Marrero) did a good job getting the double to start and Logan got them over so my job was just to get them in somehow, some way and thankfully I got a good pitch to hit and got them in,” Burdick said.
Crushers starting pitcher Jake Repavich (4-5, 5.01) pitched well against the Grizzlies in his eighth start of the season as he surrendered three runs on eights hits over seven innings pitched.
“We were a little short staffed in the bullpen...so we were really going to ride Repavich for as long as he could go and it was up to him to make the necessary adjustments in order to get a good hitting team out,” Crushers manager Cam Roth said.
“I don’t care what their (Gateway) record is, they are going to come out there and they have realistically nothing to lose so they are going to play the game hard and they aren’t going to lay down for anyone. I thought he (Repavich) did a good job in terms of minimizing some damage.”
Lake Erie increased its lead to two over the Schaumburg Boomers, pending the outcome of Schaumburg’s game against Windy City on Aug. 14.
There are 16 games left to play in the regular season.
Up next, Lake Erie and Gateway will square off in the series finale of their four-game series Aug. 15 at 7:05 p.m. from Sprenger Stadium.