Powerful pitching gives Toledo the 3-1 win over Columbus

Star Wars and baseball have had a long-standing connection through the years thanks to May the Fourth. The holiday was celebrated in Columbus at Huntington Park as the Mud Hens took on the Clippers. This series has been all about high scoring, back and forth baseball, but that changed with Saturday’s game.

The game began with an elite-level pitching duel. Columbus came out with Connor Gillispie and Toledo with Bryan Sammons. Both pitchers kept the game scoreless through the first three innings. Gillispie only gave up a walk and two hits, including a first-inning double to Buddy Kennedy, while picking up three strikeouts. Sammons showed him up by sitting his first nine straight batters through the first three innings.

The duel of the fates continued into the fourth inning. It looked like Toledo might break from Gillispie’s grasp when they put runners on first and second base, but a Riley Unroe groundout ended the top of the inning.

The smooth sailing through the Clippers’ lineup continued for Sammon to begin the bottom of the fourth. He quickly sat down Myles Straw and Juan Brito, but things got rough after that. He would give up a home run to Kyle Manzardo as his first hit of the day. Sammons didn’t allow any more damage though, drawing a pop out from Johnathan Rodriguez.

The Columbus lead was short lived as Andrew Navigato took Gillispie deep on the first pitch of the fifth inning. Akil Baddoo followed his lead with a double off of the right field wall. A walk drawn by Jace Jung moved Baddoo to second and brought Keston Hiura to the plate. Hiura hit a ground ball straight down the right field line and brought in Baddoo as the ball barely fell fair. Madrid then gave the Mud Hens the 3-1 lead by bringing home Jung with a well-placed grounder.

In the bottom of the fifth, Sammons went right back to the pace he had held in the first three innings, going one, two, three for the fourth time of the day.

Following his fifth inning struggles, Gillispie’s time on the mound came to an end. Columbus elected to replace him with Eli Morgan. Morgan is with Columbus on a rehab assignment from the Cleveland Guardians. Morgan looked even better than Gillispie, going one, two, three on strikeouts.

Sammons went into what would be his final inning with a 3-1 lead over the Clippers. He continued to claw through their lineup picking up two more strikeouts before ending the sixth inning. Sammons finished the day with an impressive seven strikeouts, zero walks, and only two hits.

Morgan’s day on the mound was very limited as Columbus went with Sam Hentges took over in the seventh inning. He quickly got his first two outs before walking Jung. He would draw a ground out from Hiura to keep the Hens lead within reach.

With Sammons’ day done, Toledo brought out Beau Brieske to take over. Brieske challenged the Columbus batters by alternating between his four-seam fastball and his changeup. Only Rodriguez would draw a base hit off of Brieske before Toledo returned to the plate.

The Clippers would turn to their bullpen once again in the eighth inning. Anthony Banda began with a ground out from Bligh Madris as his bat broke on the swing. Banda closed the column with two straight strikeouts.

Brieske began the bottom of the eight by giving up a base hit to Jose Tena. Tena wasn’t out there long though as Bryan Lavastida hit into a double play. The Clippers were then able to draw their first walk of the day, but it was for nothing as Straw hit a routine grounder to Navigato.

With the Hens unable to expand their lead, they went into the bottom of the ninth with Devin Sweet on the mound. Sweet had already made multiple late-game appearances throughout this series including a win on Friday night. Brito led off with a walk, but Sweet picked up three straight outs to get the 3-1 win.

Toledo has a chance to claim the series on Sunday at 1:05 p.m. They currently lead the Clippers three games to two.

Notables:

Bryan Sammons 6.0 IP, W, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR

Devin Sweet 1.0 IP, S, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K,

Andrew Navigato 1-4, HR, RBI, R