In his previous appearance, Luis Oviedo, turned in a strong outing with a six inning, 3 hit, 1 run performance. Unfortunately, he was on the wrong end of 1-0 loss as the Lake County Captains could not muster any offense against the Quad City River Bandits and pitcher Nivaldo Rodriguez. The Captains were only able to reach Rodriguez for 2 hits in the abbreviated 7 inning game.
The next time out, Oviedo shut out the Beloit Snappers for 6 innings again giving up just 4 hits, 1 walk and striking out 9 batters. With help from Skylar Arias who pitched a perfect 2 innings and Manuel Alvarez who pitched the ninth for his 3rd save of the season, Luis raised his record to 4-2 and helped lift the Captains back into a tie for first place temporarily in the Midwest’s Eastern Division. Ruben Cardenas drove in the lone run of the game with a single after Jesse Berardi reached base on a double.
The Captains have been streaking lately as the last victory was their fourth in a row which followed five straight losses. They still have an 18-13 record trailing the Great Lake Loons of the LA Dodger farm system by a mere 1/2 game.
Lake County has received fairly consistent starting pitching and some great relief work so far this season. They have been lead as mentioned by Luis Oviedo whose 4 wins lead the team as well as sporting a solid 3.72 ERA. Shane McCarthy has a 3-2 record with a 3.09 ERA and leads the team with 36 K’s. Shane also has a 1.00 WHIP in six starts covering 32 innings. Raymond Burgos started well winning his first two outings but hasn’t found the win column since April 11. He does have a nifty 2.86 ERA in 28 innings with a K/W ratio of 30/9.
The bullpen has been lead by four Captains with Dakody Clemmer and Manuel Alvarez each having 3 saves. Alvarez in 10 appearances covering 13 innings has yet to give up any runs this season. Aaron Pinto has a 3-1 record in 9 relief appearances with a sparkling 1.10 ERA. In addition to those three, Skylar Arias has a fine 1.26 ERA in 9 games with one save and a 21/8 K/W mark in just 14 innings.
On the hitting side, Mitch Reeves and Tyler Freeman continue to lead the Captains with Reeves hitting .311, 3 HR’s and 15 RBI. Freeman is batting .293 and leads the team with 27 runs scored. Tyler also is second on the team with 8 SB’s out of 9 attempts. Jesse Berardi has worked his way out of very poor start to the season and is now up to a .250 average.
On the down side, Will Benson after his prolific 4 home run game has not hit another home run and is down to a .250 batting average as well. Compared to his finish in 2018 (.180) this is still some good progress and importantly Benson leads the team with 22 RBI and has 9 SB’s. Unfortunately, Will also leads the Captains with 43 strikeouts in 96 AB’s. Bo Naylor is off to slow professional start and is only hitting .188. Bo has 3 extra base hits and has yet to hit his first home run. Naylor has had 5 errors so far and there are chances that one area is affecting the other. He’s only 19 as many players are at this level so there’s an expected break-in period as they get used to the grind of the minor leagues. Hosea Nelson is another player that will need to start hitting as he struggles with a .189 average and has struck out 35 times out of 74 AB’s.
The Captains April 8th game vs Beloit was rained out. They start a three game series on the road against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers who are the Milwaukee Brewers Midwest League representatives. Wisconsin currently has a 13-17 record and is 7 1/2 games out of first. Lake County’s starter has not yet been announced.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
