Waterloo, IA – Eau Claire’s Mike Erspamer delivered six innings of shutout baseball and struck out nine on the way to his third win of the season in a 7-0 victory over Waterloo as the Express swept the Bucks in a four-game set at Riverfront Stadium.

After exploding with offense early in the game yesterday, Eau Claire got on the board first once again in the top of the fourth in the series finale Wednesday night. Philip Cheong reached on an error, then moved up on CJ Varsho’s single. During the next at-bat, Cheong stole third and scored on a throwing error to put the Express in front 1-0. With two outs and two in scoring position, Hollon Brock bounded a base hit into left to plate both runs to make it 3-0. 

That was all the Express starter Mike Erspamer needed in the game. The lefty was superb with nine strikeouts across six innings of work in which he allowed just four baserunners in total en route to his third win of the year. 

In the top of the fifth, the Express tacked on another run with AJ Marchetti hustling for a triple to score one batter later on Mikey Muniz’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-0.

In the top of the sixth, Eau Claire pulled away. An error and two walks loaded the bases before Marchetti ripped a single to center to bring in a pair of runs to balloon the lead to 6-0. Next man up, Muniz tucked a double down the left field line to swap places with Marchetti to make it 7-0, the score that would be the final. 

The Express bullpen picked up right where Erspamer left off and kept the Bucks quiet. Carter Gunderson, Brock Adamson, and Zach Peters all pitched one inning and each hurled scoreless frames to finish off a three-hit shutout of Waterloo, 7-0 to sweep the four-game series.

With the loss, the Bucks go to 23-31 overall and 9-11 in the second half of the season. After a day off on Thursday, Waterloo hosts Rochester in the front end of a home-and-home series Friday night. First pitch is penciled in at 6:35 pm. Both starters in the game are TBD.