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Errors prove to be costly for Lugnuts

May 14, 2007
Chase Lirette sends a pitch flying toward a Quad City hitter Friday during the Lansing Lugnuts' final game of the home series. They finished with a 11-5 loss. —

Lansing — The Lansing Lugnuts ended a four-game series against The Swing of the Quad Cities on a down note Friday night, falling 11-5. The losing continued when the team began a road trip on Saturday, with Lansing falling to South Bend, 11-3.

The losses dropped the squad to 17-15, as the Lugnuts continue to struggle during the month of May, losing nine of their last 12 outings.

Lugnuts starter Chase Lirette took the loss, dropping his record to 4-2. Lirette went 6 1/3 innings, gave up four earned runs, seven hits and struck out three.

"I thought I had the right idea approaching their lineup and my command was decent, but I made some mistakes and executed some pitches poorly," Lirette said of his Friday night start.

Lirette didn't have his best stuff, and his fielders didn't make matters any easier.

The Lugnuts committed two errors during the game, both of which came during the top of the second inning and allowed the Swing to take an early 3-0 lead.

The first error was charged to right fielder Travis Snider, the Toronto Blue Jays' 2006 first-round draft pick. Snider dropped a fly ball to deep right field, allowing Quad Cities designated hitter Christian Reyes to score. A one-out single by Quad Cities third baseman Donovan Solano was followed by another error by Lansing shortstop Chris Gutierrez.

"Lirette made a couple mistakes to the bottom of their order, but we made some errors and lacked defense tonight," Lugnuts manager Gary Cathcart said.

Brandon Dickson earned the victory for Quad Cities. He is now 6-2 on the season.

Solano paced The Swing from the bottom of the batting order with a 4-of-5 night, and drove in five runs. Solano entered the game without a hit in his last 22 plate appearances. Lirette explained that Solano did not go overlooked throughout the course of the game — he just wasn't hitting his spots.

"I think it was a coincidence, I didn't make the pitches when I needed to," Lirette said. "I need to work on executing my pitches and focusing on hitters."

Lansing tied the game 3-3 in the bottom of the fifth after a solo home run by catcher Matthew Liuzza and an RBI single by Gutierrez. Lirette was then relieved in the top half of the seventh, an inning which decided the result of the game.

The Swing batted around and knocked in seven runs, four charged to relief pitcher Edward Rodriguez, who managed to record only one out.

"He struggled a bit to find the strike zone, had some walks, and that loaded up the bases," Cathcart said.

The Lugnuts could not muster enough of a comeback after The Swing's seventh-inning burst, adding only two runs the rest of the way. Quad Cities relief pitcher Blake King contributed a strong performance to help keep any chance of a Lugnuts comeback at bay, recording three scoreless innings and striking out four.

The Lugnuts return home today to face South Bend. The first pitch is scheduled to be thrown at 7:05 p.m.

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