MIDLAND, MI – The Great Lakes Loons (26-34, 60-70) cashed in on eight runs Friday night at Dow Diamond, during Chemical Bank’s Raining Money Night, to defeat the league’s hottest team, the Lansing Lugnuts (30-28, 77-50), by the score of 8-3 in front of 4,226 Loons fans.
Accounting for four of the Loons 11 hits was shortstop Darnell Sweeney, who missed hitting for the cycle in the eighth inning when his line drive hit three feet below the top of the right-field wall.
“When I hit it, I thought it was gone,” Sweeney said of his final at-bat. “I hit it really good and squared it up pretty well and once I saw it hit the wall I had to get on my horses to get to second base. I’ve never hit for the cycle before and that would have been the perfect time for it, but we’ll take the win.”
Sweeney hit a triple to left field in the first inning, a single to center in the second, and a double to the right-field corner in the sixth, before nearly connecting on his sixth home run of the year, which instead fell in for a double. The win was the second consecutive for the Loons, who have totaled 17 runs in their last 19 innings, and gave Great Lakes the 2-1 series win.
Gustavo Gomez started on the hill for the Loons and picked up his eighth win to level his season record. Gomez held the Lugnuts hitless through the first three innings, but Lansing broke through in the fourth with two hits and scored two runs on a wild pitch. That was all that Gomez allowed, who fanned four batters in six innings of work. Amalio Diaz made his Dow Diamond debut, allowing one run in two innings, before Loons reliever Daniel Carela closed out the final frame.
Offensively, the Loons scored seven of their runs over the first three innings. O’Koyea Dickson highlighted the first inning by driving a home run out to left field that scored two runs; Joe Winker slapped a two-out two-run single to center field in the second; and Jesse Bosnik’s broken bat single over the infield scored another. The final Loons run came through in the sixth on a sacrifice fly from Winker to score Sweeney.
The Great Lakes Loons will begin a four-game series with the Lake County Captains, the Midwest League affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, on Saturday at Dow Diamond. The Loons send LHP Greg Wilborn (2-2, 4.54) to the hill against LHP Shawn Morimando (6-5, 3.73). Fans attending the 7:05 p.m. game will enjoy a postgame Fireworks Loontacular powered by Dow Corning.
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