Washington Fails To Muster Much in Series-Opening Loss

WASHINGTON, PA – The Washington Wild Things [28-23] lost their first game back from the All-Star break, after having a franchise-record eight players representing Washington this past week. With the Windy City ThunderBolts [29-22] in town for the first time since May, they defeated the Wild Things 7-1 Friday night.

The Wild Things were out hit 13-4 in the contest, and only mustered one hit through the first five innings, thanks to center fielder Rashad Brown’s single to start the game in the first inning. Left fielder James Harris also recorded his first-career hit with Washington; he signed just two days before the All-Star break and was hitless in one game before Friday’s game against the ThunderBolts.

The Wild Things opened up the scoring in the first inning when first baseman Kane Sweeney hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score Brown from third, and put the Wild Things up 1-0 after one.

The rest of the game was all Windy City, as left-handed pitcher Brian O’Keefe (2-4) went four innings and gave up nine hits and three earned runs while striking out four ThunderBolts. In the third inning, Windy City scored its first two runs off RBI base hits from left fielder Coco Johnson and second baseman Tim Zier to give them a 2-1 lead over Washington after three innings.

Johnson struck once again in the fifth inning with an RBI single that brought home shortstop Ransom LaLonde to give Windy City a 3-1 lead after five innings. Adding some insurance runs in the ninth inning, the Thunderbolts scored another four runs to bring the game to its final score of 7-1 in favor of Windy City.

Washington and Windy City play game two of their series tomorrow evening at 7:05 p.m. Right-hander Clay Chapman takes the hill for Windy City, while Trevor Foss takes the mound for the Wild Things.

Box Score: http://baseball.pointstreak.com/gamelive/?gameid=379104