Madison’s bullpen bruises their chances in Saturday night loss
Mequon, WI – The Mallards were unable to hold their lead for a second consecutive night in their 5-2 loss to the Lakeshore Chinooks on Saturday night.
Lakeshore snatched the first lead of the night in the bottom of the 3rd inning against Mallards’ starter Tommy Meyer, who turned in a strong first start as the 6th man in the rotation. Two singles from Luke Wroblewski and Nate Mieszkowski gave the Chinooks a 1-0 lead. Madison’s offense was off to a slow start against Chinooks’ starter Colin Dailey, who struck out five through the first two innings. Dailey left after three innings of hitless baseball in his first start.
The box score showed zeros across the board for Madison until the top of the 5th. A fielder’s choice put Canyon Brown on base and he was scored by Korbyn Dickerson after Brown stole his first bag of the season. Madison jumped in front for the first time on Saturday an inning later with an Owen Jackson sacrifice fly.
Similar to Friday night’s game with the five-run bottom of the 7th for Lakeshore, the bottom of the 6th is when they put up a, somewhat, crooked number. After Meyer departed, Madison called on left-hander Will Peterson to make his debut. Peterson’s day was done after a walk, a single, a wild pitch, another walk, and a hit batter, all without recording an out. Nick Argento entered and limited the damage the rest of the way. The Chinooks added one more run in the bottom of the 7th after the second Madison error of the game to make the score 5-2. The Mallards have now committed 16 total errors on the season which ranks as the most in the Northwoods League.
The Mallards threatened with multiple baserunners in both the 8th and 9th innings at Kapco Park against D.J. Hess but could not score any of their four singles in the two frames. Prior to the last two innings, Madison only had two hits on the night.
Following the Lakeshore sweep of Madison, the Mallards will travel to a place that haunted them a year ago in Wisconsin Rapids. Madison went 0-12 against the Rafters a year ago during the historic 57-15 season for Wisconsin Rapids. First pitch on Sunday is scheduled for 4:05 P.M. from Witter Field.
