Guardians Baseball Insider

Photo credit: TCP Photography/Courtesy Lake County Captains

This week’s series is now tied 1-1 after the Captains were blown away Wednesday night 14-4 by the Loons, equalling their second-largest defeat of the season.

The Loons got started right away, with the first pitch of the game going for a home run. A two-run home run and an RBI triple in the second made it 5-0 and the rout was on. The Loons third home run of the night led off the third inning and made it 6-0, but the Captains responded by showing their first signs of life and scoring three runs in the bottom of the fourth, thanks to doubles by Petey Halpin, Gabriel Rodriguez and Mike Amditis. The very next inning, however, yet another Loons home run made it 8-3. After a solo home run from Joe Naranjo pulled a run back for the Captains in the fifth, the Loons put the game away with a five-run seventh, including a grand slam for their fifth and final home run of the night. After the Captains loaded the bases in the eighth but didn’t get anything out of it, the Loons added one more run for good measure in the top of the ninth.

Boone’s Tough Outing

After Rodney Boone’s first pitch of the game was crushed over the left field wall by Eddys Leonard, things didn’t get much better for him. After giving up one run on two hits in the first, he gave up seven more runs on eight more hits in his next four innings, amounting to one of the worst starts Classic Park has seen this season, allowing eight runs on 10 hits and walking three while failing to strike out a single batter.

It is fitting for the rollercoaster that Boone’s performances have been since being called up that he had one of the Captains’ worst starts of the season Wednesday, because he had one of their best roughly a month ago, throwing a complete game shutout against the Lansing Lugnuts.

That has been the story of Boone’s time in Lake County, however, as the number of runs he has allowed has varied wildly from start to start. Since his debut for Lake County on June 10, he has allowed run totals of 1-5-4-0-6-1-8. Since he joined the Captains, it has been unclear what version of Boone would take the mound in each start, and Wednesday was no different.

Going Down Swinging

The Captains offense was completely inept for much of Wednesday night, recording just 9 total hits, three of them in the fourth inning and striking out 12 times. They also struck out multiple times in four different innings, while only having multiple runners reach base three times.

Alexfri Planez and Johnathan Rodriguez, who have been two of the Captains best hitters this season, combined to strike out five times, all of them swinging, and all of them against Loons starter Emmett Sheehan, who’s fastball was absolutely lethal for most of his five innings.

Petey Halpin was the Captains lone bright spot on offense, going 3-4 with a pair of doubles and a run scored … Captains pitching struck out just one batter all night Wednesday, and it belonged to reliever Matt Turner … The Captains will be back in action Thursday at 7:00 against the Loons once again, and Aaron Davenport, a 2021 6th-round pick by the Guardians, will be on the mound, facing off against 2021 4th-round pick Nick Nastrini.