Four Ducks Homers Sweep SeaWolves Back to Erie

The SeaWolves (43-33) dropped a third straight to Akron (45-33) as the RubberDucks beat Erie on Wednesday 9-1.

Akron opened the scoring in the first inning when Kahlil Watson hit a solo home run against Erie opener Jake Higginbotham.

Milan Tolentino clobbered a solo home run in the second inning, giving Akron a 2-0 lead. Yordys Valdes followed the home run with a single. He advanced to second and third on a pair of errors on pickoff throws from Higginbotham. He scored on Connor Kokx’s infield single with two out, making it 3-0 Akron. After Kokx stole second base, C.J. Kayfus scored him on a bloop single, which made it 4-0.

Joe Lampe’s solo home run against Erie reliever Angel Reyes extended Akron’s lead to 5-0.

Kayfus added a two-out RBI single in the fourth to extend the lead to 6-0.

In the seventh, Alexfri Planez connected on Akron’s fourth home run of the night. His two-run blast against Tim Naughton made it 8-0. Tolentino followed with a double. He scored on a wild pitch to make it 9-0.

Akron starter Austin Peterson tossed seven shutout innings and allowed only one hit. Erie scored in the eighth against reliever Jordan Jones. Jake Holton doubled and scored on Gage Workman’s single, making it 9-1.

Peterson (2-0) won his second Double-A start. Higginbotham (2-2) took the loss.

The series shifts to UPMC Park for Thursday’s game. First pitch is at 6:35 p.m. with Carlos Peña facing Parker Messick.