KALAMAZOO, MI — Following two straight victories against the Kenosha Kingfish, the Kalamazoo Growlers dropped Saturday night’s contest, the third of a four game set, 13-6.
Kenosha jumped out early, with 6 runs in the first four frames. What looked like a Kingfish blowout early certainly became interesting in the middle innings. Kalamazoo scored five in the bottom half of the fourth. Nolan McCarthy doubled down the left field line with the bases loaded, scoring both Alex Tappen and Damon Lux. Dom Pitelli’s sacrifice fly plated Luke Storm before Tate Ballestero hammered a 2-Run Home Run to right field, which shrank the Kingfish lead to 6-5.
This transitioned the contest into a battle of the bullpens. Unfortunately, Kenosha’s bullpen was much more up to the task. Growlers relievers struggled to keep the bats at bay, with the Kingfish scoring two in the sixth, four in the seventh and tacking on one more in the eighth. The bleeding was only stopped by outfielder and first baseman Henry Gargus, as the Stanford man tossed a scoreless ninth inning.
On the other side, left hander Brady Kais dominated out of the Kingfish bullpen, tossing four innings of one run baseball, and getting Kenosha back in the win column.
Despite dropping to 25-40 on the season, the Growlers still have a chance to win the series Sunday afternoon, with first pitch scheduled for 1:35 ET.