Loons fall to South Bend on Sunday May, 22nd

Gustavo Gomez has a rough 3rd, while Roman Pena has big day at the dish...

    icon May 23, 2011
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Sunday 05/22/2011
Midland, Mi

The Great Lakes Loons hosted The South Bend Silverhawks in a 2:05 p.m. game at Dow Diamond on Sunday afternoon.  The Minor League Baseball contest was the 3rd game of a 4 game series between the 2 Midwest League foes.

South Bend took game 1 of the series on Friday evening.  Silverhawks pitcher, Bradin Hagens secured the victory with a dominant 4-0 shutout performance.  The Loons evened the series at 1 game apiece on Saturday evening with a 6-4 “come from behind” victory.  Pitcher, Pete Budkevics earned the “W” for the Loons in Saturday night’s contest. 

Sunday’s game had a little bit of everything, including a weather delay caused by a severe thunderstorm with damaging high winds, hail the size of peas, and massive amounts of rain.  When the 20 minute storm was over, the rain had left 2/3’s of the outfield at Dow Diamond under water.  The only thing missing was the Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man!  Despite playing their 3rd home game in as many days, the Loons players certainly had no cause to click their Cleats together 3 times and yell “THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!”

The Loons got out to an early 2-0 lead, only to fall behind 6-2 following a shaky 3rd inning pitching performance by one of the clubs best young pitchers.  The Loons showed some offensive power, but could not cool the hot bat’s of the Silverhawks, as they ultimately fell to South Bend by a final score of 10-7 

Loons starting pitcher, Gustavo Gomez started the game strong, retiring the first 6 batters he faced.  Gomez then walked 3 batters in a row to start the 3rd inning.  With the bases loaded, the Silverhawks ran a “hit and run” play, allowing the runners on 2nd and 3rd to score, which also resulted in a 5-2-3 “double play” for the Loons.  Despite the 2 run deficit, the “double play” gave the young Loons pitcher a glimmer of hope with 2 outs.  The next batter, Siverhawks short stop Roberto Ortiz, hit a double to the gap and the wheels started to come off for the young Loons hurler.  With 2 outs, Gomez proceeded to walk the next 2 batters and give up consecutive “base hit singles” to Matt Helm and Ramon Castillo respectively.  “Gomez had a hard time finding the strike zone in the 3rd inning,” Loons Manager, John Shoemaker said.  “The game started to speed up on him, he’ll be a lot better when he learns to take his time and slow the game down.”  Shoemaker continued, “He’ll be ok, we’ll work with him in practice and get him going in the right direction.”

There were some bright spots offensively for the Loons on Sunday afternoon.  Outfielder, Roman Pena was just 1 “base hit single” shy of hitting for the cycle.  Pena went 3 for 4 with a walk, a home run, a triple, and a double on Sunday.  Pena earned an RBI for his home run, and scored 4 of the Loons 7 runs.  “I felt really good out there today,” said Pena.  “It was just 1 of those days where you go out there and you have fun, and that’s just what I went out and did today, I had fun.”

The Loons will hope to split with South Bend as they wrap up their series on Monday at 7:05 p.m. at Dow Diamond.  Right hander, Angel Sanchez(0-0, 0.00ERA) will get the ball for the Loons, while Jeff Shields(1-4, 7.47 ERA) will be on the hill for South Bend.  The Loons will finish off a 7 game home stand with 3 straight home games against the Dayton Dragons on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Tuesday and Wednesday’s games will start at 7:05 p.m., while Thursday’s game starts at 10:35 a.m.   

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