Rain holds back, but the Hens don't in 7-5 win

The Mud Hens made the trek back to Toledo after splitting their series with the Columbus Clippers. In their first game back home since April 28, the Hens got off to a strong start on both sides.

Ty Madden would get the start on the bump against the Saints, this would be his second game with the Mud Hens. The first inning featured a solid start from Madden who had two strikeouts and a spectacular stop from Riley Unroe off of a hard hit grounder.

St. Paul went with Joe Gunkel to start this series off. He had a rough start as the bats were hot for the Hens. A Buddy Kennedy walk and a single from Jace Jung had the Mud Hens in scoring position with just one out. Keston Hiura had the Hens on the board first with an RBI double to bring Kennedy home. Bligh Madris brought in Jung and Hiura with a grounder down the right field line that came off his bat at 106.8 mph. The back to back doubles gave Toledo an early 3-0 lead. The Hens weren’t quite finished though as Dillon Dingler had an RBI single which allowed Hiura to score from second.

Madden would pick up his third strikeout of the game in the second inning, but also gave up a solo home run to Yunior Severino.

The Hens hitting stayed hot in the bottom of the second. Andrew Navigato had the hens third double of the day with a lead off hit. He then scored thanks to a Buddy Kennedy RBI single. The Saints decided they had seen enough of Gunkel, opting to bring out Austin Schulfel to replace him. His inning was short-lived as Jung hit into a double play.

St. Paul continued to claw their way out of the 4-1 pit they found themselves in, in the third inning. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. took Madden deep into left field to cut the Toledo lead to 5-2. Anthony Prato followed that up with a double, but was left stranded.

The scoring slowed down for a while until Navigato sent one to the parking lot just across the street in left field to make it a 6-2 Toledo lead. Akil Baddoo drew a walk, stole second, and tried to take home off a Jung base hit, but wasn’t fast enough as the catcher Matt Wallner tagged him out.

The fifth inning opened with Madden on the mound, but after giving up a walk to Diego A. Castillo his day ended. Tim Federowicz was happy to see his pitcher improve from his first start.

“He used all of his pitches,” Federowicz said. “His command still wasn’t the best, but he was still able to work through and stay in the zone.”

Madden felt about the same with his performance saying it was “a step in the right direction”.

Mason Englert would take the reins and quickly draw a double play off the bat of Keirsey Jr. and a flyout from Prato.

The Saints turned to Michael Boyle in the fifth inning as he was able to keep it a 6-2 game. Toledo also made a change on the mound with Bryce Tassin taking over for Englert. Tassin hit Michael Helman with a pitch and walked Severino, while picking up two strikeouts. Patrick Winkel would have a well placed hit down the right field line to score Helman and make it a 6-3 game.

The seventh inning brought with it Trey Wingenter on the mound for the Hens. Wingenter and the Hens saw success with two groundouts split by a strikeout to close the column.

St. Paul would also dig further into their bullpen with Hobie Harris getting the start in the bottom of the seventh inning. Jung took him deep as the lead off hitter to make it a 7-3 Toledo lead. Harris cleaned it up after that with two strikeouts and a groundout.

After both teams went scoreless in the eighth inning, Toledo had a chance to end it in the ninth, leading 7-3. They would leave it to Brennan Hanifee to try and get the final three outs. He forced groundouts from Winkel and Kemp before hitting Castillo with a pitch. Keirsey Jr. was able to close in on the Toledo lead with a two-run homer, making it a 7-5 game. That would be his second home run of the game and his sixth of the season. It would be for nothing though as the game closed on a groundout from Prato’s broken bat.

The Hens are home all this week including for an early 11:05 a.m. first pitch Wednesday.

Notables:

Jace Jung 3-4, HR, RBI, 2 R

Andrew Navigato 3-4, HR, 2B, RBI, R

Trey Wingenter 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K