Quad Cities Rides Out Rain, Defeats Chiefs to Even Series

Peoria, Illinois – After a season-long two-hour and 25-minute rain delay, the Quad Cities River Bandits topped the Peoria Chiefs 3-1 at Dozer Park and evened their six-game series at one win apiece.

The River Bandits did all their damage offensively against Chiefs’ starter Pete Hansen and within the first two innings, taking a 1-0 lead on Carson Roccaforte’s first-inning sacrifice-fly before jumping ahead 3-0 in the second on Jack Pineda’s RBI-single, and Jared Dickey’s bases loaded walk.

Quad Cities’ starter, Hunter Patteson, thrived with the early advantage and held the Chiefs without a run over a 4.0-inning start with the help of three strikeouts.

Peoria broke into the run column during the fifth inning against Natanael Garabitos and used an Omar Hernandez throwing error to set up an RBI-groundout off the bat of Osvaldo Tovalin. The unearned run would be the only tally plated against Quad Cities’ pitching staff, which collected nine strikeouts and didn’t allow a walk for the first time in 2024.

Despite the poor start, Pete Hansen finished his day with 4.0-straight scoreless inning, but after Garabitos (1-1) completed his day with a scoreless sixth en route to his first River Bandits win, A.J. Block and Ben Sears would close out the game with 3.0-combined scoreless innings.

Block earned his third hold of the season, while Sears matched Great Lakes’ Lucas Wepf for the Midwest League lead in saves with his eighth of the season.

Quad Cities continues its six-game series against Peoria on Thursday and sends Hunter Owen (6-2, 3.12) to the mound opposite Darlin Saladin (0-0, 0.00), who makes his High-A debut. First pitch at Dozer Park is set for 6:35 p.m.