The Waterloo Bucks (7-1) closed out a 5-0 homestand and won their sixth straight with an 8-0 shutout of the Minnesota Mud Puppies (1-5) on Monday night. In their four-game sweep of Minnesota, Waterloo outscored their foes 36-6 and held them to just three hits in each of the last three games while committing only one error over the course of the set.<\/p>\n
Ryan Duffy starred on the bump for the Bucks, working a career-high 5.0 scoreless innings with just two hits and two walks while striking out a collegiate-best five batters to earn the win. The southpaw piled up 12 whiffs on 70 pitches, working at a 63.2% first-pitch strike rate and a 72.7% ground-ball rate.<\/p>\n
Waterloo opened the scoring in the third as Chris Seng (0-for-3, 2 BB, R, 2 SB) led off with a walk and Daniel Irisarri (1-for-5) singled. Garrett McGowan (1-for-4) flew into a double play with the two moving on the pitch, Irisarri being doubled off first. Seng then stole third and scored on a wild pitch as Cameron Repetti (1-for-2, 2 BB, 2 R, SB) drew a walk. Repetti stole second, then Liam Critchett (1-for-4, ROE) hit a routine grounder to first that was misplayed by the pitcher covering, allowing Repetti to score.<\/p>\n
A wild fifth began with Repetti drawing a walk and going first-to-third on a Critchett single, followed by Tavan Shahidi (1-for-1, 2 BB, HBP, 2 R) taking ball four on a pitch that missed all the way to the backstop, scoring Repetti. On the play, Critchett was thrown out at third, bringing Blaine Marchman (2-for-4, 2 R, 3B, HR, 3 RBI) to the plate with two out and one on. The Bucks’ catcher ripped a ball down the third base line that careened into the tarp in the corner, and he was awarded with an RBI triple.<\/p>\n
Leading 6-0 in the eighth, Marchman tacked on two more as Shahidi drew a leadoff walk then the former blasted a moonshot deep into dead center for his first Bucks home run.<\/p>\n
Camren Landry worked around a walk in the sixth and struck out one to fire a scoreless frame, then Jordan Nelson came on an earned a three-inning save, striking out seven. Nelson permitted just one hit and one walk while racking up 15 swinging strikes on 47 pitches (31.9% sws).<\/p>\n
Owning the best record in the Northwoods League through eight games, Waterloo begins a four-game road trip on Tuesday in Willmar with a 7:05 p.m. first pitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Waterloo Bucks (7-1) closed out a 5-0 homestand and won their sixth straight with an 8-0 shutout of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-news"],"yoast_head":"\n