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I-Cubs Still Looking for Way Out
Round Rock hasn't had any trouble getting into the jet stream above Principal Park. The Express have belted four homers in two games including a back-to-back pair Friday night off of Casey Coleman that were the difference in the 4-3 contest. But the home team remains homerless, having split the first half of a four-game set to open the season.
RR started southpaw Martin Perez and the only hit he surrendered to an Iowa lefty in six innings of work was Brett Jackson's two-out, opposite field, off-the-wall triple in the fifth that went for naught. Jackson later drew a bases-loaded walk.
Trailing 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh Iowa mounted a threat that brought Anthony Rizzo to the plate with the bases loaded, one out and the score 4-2. Rizzo, facing LH reliever Mike Kirkman, singled to center. With Tony Campana the runner aboard at second the score was sure to be tied, right? Wrong! Instead the crowd was fit to be tied when CF Leonys Martin gunned Campana down at the plate on the play that decided the outcome.
For the second night in a row Campana was in the middle of everything, like a brat at a birthday party. Twice he was thrown out on the bases, having been caught stealing earlier after drawing a leadoff walk in the bottom of the first. Later he played a liner perfectly off the wall and turned a sure double into a 7-4 putout with a strong throw. In the middle of the seventh inning sequence he laid down his second bunt hit in as many games.
Wellington Castillo almost got the I-Cubs off and (home) running with a double high off of the center field wall that scored Ty Wright in the fourth but that was it other than the uprising snuffed out by Martin's erasure of Campana.
Coleman was working in the mid-90's and fanned five without walking anyone in his five innings but four of the five hits off of him were doubles or home runs so he remains who we thought he was.
The Iowa bullpen hung up four more zeroes. That's seven in two games. I'm wanting to start calling them the Goose Egg Gang but it's early.
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