Lugnuts fall one pitch short of another sweep

FORT WAYNE, Indiana – The Lansing Lugnuts (52-58) needed one more out to sweep the Forth Wayne TinCaps (52-58) on Wednesday night; instead a walk-off single from Kelvin Alarcon plated two and Fort Wayne earned a split.

Let’s start with the good news: the Lugnuts offense came alive in Game 1 in two half-innings.

Lansing opened up the first inning against Connor Lehmann and greeted him with four runs. After a Shane Selman walk and a base hit from Cobie Vance, William Simoneit drilled a double. That was the first of three RBI’s for Simoneit, as Selman scored. Lawrence Butler hit a dribbler down the first base line for his first run driven in with the Nuts. After an RBI ground-out from Brett Harris, Patrick McColl drove in Butler with a two-out single.

The TinCaps came back back with a couple of sacrifice flies in a three-run first inning against Lugnuts starter Osvaldo Berrios.

In the fourth inning, Drew Swift and Jonny Butler singled to start the inning. Shane Selman than singled to knock in Swift and Simoneit delivered his final two RBI’s bringing in Butler and Selman. Lugnuts led 7-3 after four.

After giving up three runs in the first, Berrios settled in. He pitched 4.2 scoreless innings after that racking up four strikeouts on the way.

Brock Whittlesey came in to get the final five outs and did so in order with a couple of strikeouts.

The Lugnuts earned their third straight victory in two hours and 14 minutes.

Game 2 saw more first inning fireworks from the Lugnuts. Shane Selman led off the game with a home run, becoming the second Lugnut to do that at Parkview Field this year, Max Schuemann being the first back in late May. It was Selman’s team-leading twelfth round-tripper this season. That would be the only run Lansing scored, and it nearly held up.

Jack Owen started and tossed 2.2 scoreless innings with three strikeouts. Charlie Cerny then came in and got the last out of the third and first out of the fourth before Kyle Virbitsky took over and gave up no runs in 2.1 innings.

The TinCaps had stranded eleven runners heading into the final frame, and Charles Hall was trying to keep the Houdini act going. Fort Wayne loaded the bases with no outs and on a 3-1 count, Hall got Jonny Homza to ground to Brett Harris at third, Harris got the force at the plate. Then, Chris Givin grounded to Lawrence Butler, he came home, there were two outs, both at home plate.

With the bases still loaded, Fort Wayne was down to their last strike, and Kelvin Alarcon bounced one back up the middle, a sliding stop by Swift got the ball back to Hall, he threw to Jared McDonald, but pinch-runner Ripken Reyes slid in just under the tag and the TinCaps walked it off 2-1.

The Nuts continue their 12-game, 13-day road trip with the third game at Fort Wayne tomorrow night. Lansing then returns home to end the season from September 14-19 against West Michigan. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit

lansinglugnuts.com or call (517) 485-4500.

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