(WISCONSIN TIMBER RATTLERS) – DAVENPORT, IA – Brandon Woodruff made a rehabilitation start and Braylon Payne knocked in three runs for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in an 11-6 victory over the Quad Cities River Bandits at Modern Woodmen Park on Tuesday night. Wisconsin’s win, their twentieth road win of the season, allowed them to match their season-high of eight games over .500.
Payne singled to knock in Josiah Ragsdale from second base with one out in the top of the first inning to give Wisconsin (34-26) a 1-0 lead.
Ramon Ramirez hit a lead-off homer for the River Bandits (28-33) in the bottom of the second against Woodruff.
The Rattlers broke open the game with a five-run fourth inning. Luiyin Alastre and Juan Baez started the inning with singles. David Garcia reached on an infield single with a wild throw to first allowing Alastre to score the go-ahead run.
Quad Cities brought their infield in on the grass to try to cut down Baez at the plate. Ragsdale hit a slow grounder to short, but Baez got a great jump and beat the play at home. Daniel Dickinson followed with an RBI single. Payne drew a walk to load the bases. Then, Eric Bitonti hit a deep drive to right for a sacrifice fly that let all three runners advance. Later in the inning, Dickinson scored on a wild pitch for a 6-1 lead.
That lead moved to 7-1 in the fifth inning on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Garcia.
Luke Pelzer singled in the bottom of the fifth against Woodruff. He stole second and third. Pelzer scored when Tyriq Kemp reached on a fielder’s choice on a potential double play ball. Connor Rasmussen, in his Midwest League debut, doubled to left to get Kemp to third. Angel Acosta’s sacrifice fly scored Kemp to cut Wisconsin’s lead to four runs.
Wisconsin’s offense got those two runs back in the top of the sixth. Alastre, who reached base five times on Tuesday, singled to knock in Bitonti. Castillo scored on a wild pitch for a 9-3 lead.
Woodruff went back out for the sixth and gave up a lead-off single to Asbel Gonzalez before striking out Blake Mitchell, the #1 prospect in the Kansas City Royals organization. Woodruff left the game after his sixth strikeout of the game. He threw 82 pitches (55 strikes), walked one, and allowed three runs on five hits over 5-1/3 innings.
José Nova took over for Woodruff and didn’t have to worry about the runner for long. Garcia threw out Gonzalez on a stolen base attempt for the second out of the sixth.
However, a single by Ramirez, an RBI triple by Pelzer, and a wild pitch on ball four to Derlin Figueroa allowed the Bandits to score two runs and have a runner at first trailing 9-5. Garcia would help out again as he picked off Figueroa at first to end the inning. Quad Cities ran into four outs on the bases in the game.
Payne put the game away in the top of the seventh inning with a two-run home run to right for an 11-5 advantage. Payne has hit thirteen homers in just 39 games this season.
Braylon Owens, the scheduled starting pitcher for the Rattlers on Tuesday before Woodruff was sent to Quad Cities on his rehab assignment, pitched the final three innings. He pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth inning. In the ninth, Pelzer had his third hit of the game, a lead-off single. Pelzer was at second with two outs when Rasmussen singled to score Pelzer. Owens got Acosta on a flyball to left to end the game and earn his second save of the season.
Alastre, Baez, and Garcia, the seven through nine hitters in the Wisconsin lineup, were on base eleven times with four hits and seven walks. Ragsdale was 0-for-4 but walked and was hit by a pitch to extend his current on-base streak to twenty-two games.
Game two of the series is Wednesday night at Modern Woodmen Park. Josh Knoth (0-0, 2.19) is the announced starting pitcher for the Timber Rattlers. Emmanuel Reyes (4-2, 3,71) is set to start for the River Bandits. Game time is 6:30pm CDT.
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