Grawn, Mich. \u2013 Frustration continued for the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters (11-22) as another down-to-the-wire game went the direction of the Traverse City Pit Spitters (19-13) Saturday night 5-4. The loss sends the Rafters on a long bus ride back to Wisconsin Rapids after going 2-4 over the six-game road trip. In the game, the Pit Spitters scored almost all their runs in the first inning, while a ninth-inning comeback from the Rafters left the tying runner on third. Mason Onate went 2-4 in the game while Royce Clayton Jr. reached base three times and the bullpen allowed just one run in five innings, but the home team won anyways.<\/p>\n
After an over 40-minute delay for mound maintenance, the Pit Spitters got aboard in the bottom of the first thanks to five straight batters reaching against Rafters starter Seth Spencer (0-3). Brandon Sanchez capitalized with an RBI single, Cade Collins had a two-RBI double and Brooks Sartain hit a sac fly to make it 4-0.<\/p>\n
Neither team scored again until the sixth inning, where Trent Reed relieved Traverse City starter Logan Pikur (1-1) after five shutout innings, but allowed an RBI from Wisconsin Rapids\u2019 Madden Ocko to cut the lead to 4-1.<\/p>\n
The Pit Spitters responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the sixth, seeing Aaron Piasecki pick up an RBI off Rafters reliever Brent Gallegos to bring the lead back to 5-1.<\/p>\n
The pitching took over again from there, but in the top of the ninth, the Rafters took on Traverse City reliever Jaylen Merchant, who allowed a hit by pitch, two walks and a Hiroto Kobayashi RBI single before he was pulled with runners on the corners in a 5-2 game.<\/p>\n
Andrew Cotton relieved Merchant for the Pit Spitters, but allowed a two-RBI double from JJ Garcia to make it a one-run game. From there, a wild pitch sent Garcia to third, but Traverse City\u2019s Cotton retired the final batter to keep him stranded and earn the save (1).<\/p>\n
The Rafters finished the first half of the season with a 7-11 road record after the loss and now are just half a game ahead of the Chinooks in the standings. Wisconsin Rapids will host Madison for a two-game series starting Sunday afternoon. First pitch in that game will be 3:05 P.M. and will be broadcast for video on NWL+ and for radio on WFHR 97.5 FM\/1320 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grawn, Mich. \u2013 Frustration continued for the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters (11-22) as another down-to-the-wire game went the direction of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n