LANSING - It was a game that a mother would love.

Although his team lost to the Burlington Bees 9-7 on Mother’s Day, Lansing Lugnut manager Julio Garcia said the players, as well as their mothers, should not be disappointed with the performance.

The 16-run, 23-hit barrage started right away when Lugnut first baseman Blair Barbier (2-for-4) drove in infielder Adam Morrisey (1-for-3) with a first-inning single.

“It shows, as a team, that we have some character,” Barbier said of the team’s comebacks from two-run and three-run deficits in the fourth and sixth innings.

After trading scoreless innings in the second and third, Burlington (16-19) took a 3-1 lead in the fourth, capped by a pair of home runs off Lugnut starter Renyel Pinto.

“He pitched well,” Garcia said of Pinto, who yielded four earned runs in five innings of work with five strikeouts and three walks. “There were just three or four bad pitches.”

Bees starter Ian Ferguson then gave up back-to-back sacrifice flies to Lugnut outfielders Mike Mallory and Ray Sadler in the bottom of the inning, tying the game at 3-3.

The Lugnuts (14-23) answered a two-run fifth inning by the Bees by scoring four runs in the sixth inning, including two wild pitches from Ferguson and RBI singles from Mallory and Sadler.

Sadler, now hitting .343 after nine games with the Lugnuts, went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a run scored.

“I’m seeing the ball real well right now,” he said. “After going 0-for-4 in my first game, the guys just told me not to worry about it.”

Burlington once again rallied for two runs in the seventh off Lugnut reliever Jose Cueto, who was credited with the loss, and another one in the eighth - which was a deficit the Lugnuts could not overcome.

The loss, which included four lead changes, gives the last-place Lugnuts two defeats during the Mother’s Day weekend after a 9-6 win over Burlington on Friday and a 3-2 loss Saturday.

The Lugnuts will finish the series against Burlington tonight and then go on the road for a four-game stint at Peoria.