Bradley Zimmer homers in Clippers loss, Lake County wins a nailbiter

The Cleveland Indians boast possibly the best 1-2-3 punch in all of baseball with their starting rotation, but it never hurts to have a wealth of talent on the rise in the minor league system.

That talent was on full display yesterday as four starting pitchers tossed absolute gems, failing to give up a single run in 22.2 innings of work on a day where Tribe affiliates went 4-1 overall.

Columbus Clippers 2, Lehigh Valley Ironpigs 4

Box Score · Clippers fall to 7-7

Columbus didn’t have too much of a problem collecting extra base hits yesterday, but they did have an issue with sequencing them together to score a big inning.

Top prospect Bradley Zimmer cranked his second home run of the season in the ninth inning, but the rally ended there. No one on the Clippers had a multi-hit game, although Erik Gonzalez and Jordan Smith at least picked up a double and triple respectively.

Shawn Morimando pitched into and out of trouble all day, finishing with six innings and three earned runs allowed on nine hits. He also walked two and struck out just two, dropping his overall season ERA to 9.20.

Lynchburg Hillcats 2, Potomac Nationals 8

Box Score · Hillcats fall to 7-7

Poor hit sequencing and impatience at the plate doomed the Hillcats here.

Potomac only outhit Lynchburg 9-7 in the game, but Lynchburg failed to record a walk and committed two errors. Starting pitcher Jared Robinson was knocked around, lasting just 3.2 innings while giving up four earned runs on four hits while walking two.

Long reliever Brock Hartson would have had a great stat-line if he had pitched just the fifth-eighth innings, but he was touched up for three runs in the ninth.

Claudio Bautista had a good day at the dish, racking up three hits in four at bats, while Sicnarf Loopstok and Ka’ai Tom collected doubles.

Lake County Captains 2, West Michigan Whitecaps 1

Box Score · Captains improve to 7-5

Shane Bieber wasn’t quite as dominant as his previous start, but he wound up with the same result regardless, which was a victory. In his previous outing, Bieber tossed six innings, giving up one run on four hits while striking out a career high 11 batters. Last night, he did his best Houdini act, pitching around nine hits over six innings while striking out two, and still gave up just one run.

Bieber was aided by two double plays, a pick-off and a caught stealing en route to the victory.

Second baseman Miguel Eladio, freshly called up from extended Spring Training after Elin Cerda broke his wrist earlier this week, was the hero of the game offensively. Eladio went 2-4 at the plate with a double and two runs batted in, accounting for all of Lake County’s offense.

Catcher Li-Jen Chu also went 2-4 with a double, raising his early season batting average to .357.