Rivets Drop Third Straight as Traverse City Completes Sweep

It was Bark in the Park day at Rivets Stadium in Rockford, as many dogs in the area come out to take in some Northwoods League baseball.  The Visiting Traverse City Pit Spitters dealt a 3-1 loss to the Rivets that completed the sweep.  

Sultan Solebo for Rockford started on the mound for the first time this season.  It did not go as planned for the right hander out of Lewis University. In the first inning, he offered up three walks, two hits, and three earned runs which ended up being all the Pit Spitters needed to grab the victory.  

Though it was Solebo on the hill to start, Jordan Nelson was terrific in relief.  He tossed a sterling eight innings pitched after the starter’s exit, and he did what he could to hold the visitors off to possibly keep Rockford in the game.  When asked about the great performance, pitching coach Adam Carey said, “He showed guts today, he threw the ball really well for us.” Nelson ended the contest with 8 IP, 3 H and 7 K.  His ERA on the season now sits at 3.47.  

Offense seemed to be pretty absent in the contest for Rockford.  Their only run came around to score in the 1st inning, as Jake Vander Wal scored Jonny Butler on a sac fly.  Perhaps it was due to the strong outing by Chase Gearing of Traverse City. He pitched five complete innings on the afternoon while allowing one unearned run to go along with three punch outs.  Though it was rather grim on offense for the Rivets, catcher Mason Minzey recorded three hits in the ball game which now brings his season batting average to .212 up from .177 going into the contest.  

Rivets field manager Josh Keim was not impressed by offensive showing, or lack thereof, on Sunday afternoon.  When asked what might be a point of emphasis on how he can get the offense going, he simply said, “everybody needs to wake up.”  This was a simple message that Keim portrayed, so hopefully Rockford can pick it up and get back into the win column.  

Rivets will try to end the losing streak at home on Monday Night against the Kalamazoo Growlers. Rockford now finds themselves 2.5 games back of a playoff spot.  The team they are chasing in the second half is the Growlers, so they look to pick up some ground in the two game set at home.  

The Rockford Rivets are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 25-year old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, over 200 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (MIA).  All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.rockfordrivets.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Rivets as your favorite team.