Lugnuts finish ahead of storm, behind River Bandits

DAVENPORT, IA – With the tornado siren blaring amid warnings of a severe thunderstorm watch and potential 80-mph winds, the Quad Cities River Bandits (12-16, 44-50) held off the Lansing Lugnuts (11-17, 42-51) on Friday night at Modern Woodmen Park.

It was the 12th straight Lugnuts game to end with a recorded save and the 19th out of 22 games played in July. 11 out of those 12 have been decided by two runs or fewer.

Though a Danny Bautista, Jr. two-out, two-run double gave the Lugnuts an immediate 2-0 lead in the first inning, Quad Cities scored six unanswered runs against Lansing spot starter Jack Owen and reliever John Beller between the third and fifth innings to take a 6-2 lead.

But the Lugnuts battled back. In the seventh, Junior Pérez doubled in Clark Elliott. He then took third on a wild pitch and raced home on a throwing error by catcher Carter Jensen to pull the Nuts within 6-4.

In the eighth, Colby Thomas blasted his second Midwest League home run to left field, and the deficit was down to one run.

And in the ninth, Elliott reached base on a throwing error by third baseman Cayden Wallace to put the tying run on with none out. But Brandon Johnson retired CJ Rodriguez and T.J. Schofield-Sam on flyouts to center and struck out Pérez with a high fastball to end the game.

Quad Cities has won three of the first four games in the series.

In the loss, Christian Fernandez struck out four while allowing one hit in three scoreless innings of relief and Thomas finished 3-for-4 with a single and hustle double to go with his home run.

The fifth game of the series arrives Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, 6:30 p.m. local.

The Lugnuts’ next home game is on August 8, beginning a two-week homestand against Fort Wayne and Great Lakes. Tickets are available via lansinglugnuts.com or by calling (517) 485-4500 during office hours.

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