For the tenth time over the course of nineteen games, the Gary SouthShore RailCats and the Kane County Cougars met at the Steel Yard to finish their four-game series. The Cougars headed into the game having taken the last two and Dawson Lane pitched for the RailCats and he faced Vin Timpanelli.
Claudio Finol did not waste any time hitting his 20th double of the season down the line in the top of the first to give Kane County the early lead. With two outs in the bottom of the first, Colin Summerhill crushed his third home run of the year to tie it. Marc Flores worked a walk, following that Olivier Basabe and Chris Jacobs hit back-to-back doubles to score in two runs and the ‘Cats led 3-1.
In the bottom of the third, Flores put a pitch on the batter's eye to score in two. Nick Podkul would hit a two-run home run of his own onto the street and the RailCats for a second-straight day had a six-run lead.
Kane County did not go away. With two runners on base and two outs, Zane Spinn hit his second home run of the year over the right field wall and it cut the RailCats lead in half as it became a 7-4 game.
Lane would go five innings and allow four earned runs with one walk and two strikeouts. Chas Cywin would come in and walked one batter on four pitches and hit the next two. Manager Jeff Isom would bring in Joan Valdez, Valdez got a weak fly ball to left and a double play to get out of danger.
Valdez would go another inning, Denson Hull went one and Jacob Coats closed the door as the RailCats won and split the series. The final was 7-4. Coats locking the save gave him the most saves in RailCats franchise history after the joined the American Association in 2011. The twenty-third save ties him for third-most all-time.
The RailCats head into Friday with a 20-22 record and move on to play the Lincoln Saltdogs. This will begin a stretch of seven-straight contests against Lincoln and the RailCats will pitch Matt Reitz to start the series and he’ll face Foster Pace Friday at 6:45.
