Muckdogs' Lillie fans seven in two innings

At UC Riverside, Ryan Lillie worked under the tutelage of former big league closer Troy Percival. Before every inning, the four-time Angels All-Star would tell Lillie, "Close the inning out."
The Marlins No. 16 prospect repeated those exact words to himself before accomplishing one of baseball's rarer feats Wednesday.
Lillie accumulated seven strikeouts over two hitless innings of relief as Class A Short Season Batavia topped Mahoning Valley in 11 innings, 6-4, at Eastwood Field.

Lillie registered a 5.19 ERA over his first eight appearances with the Muckdogs, totaling 26 2/3 frames. To give him a bit of a mental break, the 2017 fifth-round pick's most recent start was pushed back. As a result, he was scheduled to piggyback Wednesday and would not be allowed to exceed two innings of work.
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"My freshman and sophomore year, I closed for two years and loved it," Lillie said. "When I was told last night that my start was pushed back and I was going to be piggybacking and only getting a couple of innings, it felt like I was closing again."
The 6-foot hurler entered the game in relief of Travis Neubeck to start the seventh inning.  He struck out fifth-ranked Indians prospectNolan Jones on five pitches. After working the count to 1-2 on Simeon Lucas, Lillie buried a slider in the dirt for a swinging strikeout. But the ball kicked off catcher David Gauntt's knee and caromed toward the Batavia dugout. It became lodged under the padding on the wall, and as a result, Lucas was awarded first base. Lillie shrugged off the incident and fanned Ulysses Cantu and Cleveland's ninth-ranked prospect Will Benson over the next 10 pitches.
"I'm an ex-catcher, so I know the struggle for those guys," Lillie said with a laugh.
The 21-year-old continued to pound the zone in the eighth, setting down Dillon Persinger, Clark Scolamiero and Jason Rodriguez on strikes in just 14 pitches. When the inning ended, he had set a career high in strikeouts in his shortest outing of the season for the Muckdogs.
When Lillie returned to the dugout after the eighth, Gauntt met him with a grin on his face.
"He goes, 'You're welcome for that,'" Lillie said, referring to the dropped third strike. "I laughed. It was a cool thing to say that you got seven K's in two innings. I've been starting all season and I haven't been racking up too many K's."

After the game, the California native texted Percival to let him know what had happened.
"He was stoked," Lillie said. "Back when I was at Riverside, my teammates called him my dad. They called me Percival Jr., all that kind of stuff."
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The shortened start allowed Lillie to produce an outing reminiscent of his World Series-winning mentor.
"It was one, two innings max," he said. "So I let it all go."
Batavia won the game after a solo homer by Harrison White and an RBI single from Tyler Curtis in the top of the 11th. Both runs came at the expense of Jonathan Teaney (2-1).