LANSING - After losing 9-4 to the Quad City River Bandits on Monday night, the Lansing Lugnuts had a successful, quick turnaround for Tuesday morning’s series-ending contest.
The game started at 10:35 a.m. as Oldsmobile Park hosted its second Grand Slam School Day of the season, but the early wake-up call didn’t bother the Lugnuts, who prevented a four-game Bandit sweep with an 11-2 win in front of 9,415 mostly school-age children Tuesday.
The victory halted Lansing’s five-game losing streak.
Second baseman Blake Blasi (2-for-5), who knocked in two RBIs in the bottom of the fifth inning to tie the game at 2-2, said the early game time did not hamper the team’s play.
“Once you get the game going, I don’t think the time has anything to do with it,” he said. “Whether you start at two in the morning or midnight.”
While it took the Lugnuts awhile to get going, the Bandits got started almost as early as they rolled out of bed, scoring two runs in the first inning off Lansing starter Todd Wellemeyer (2-7).
Wellemeyer, who allowed four hits, one earned run, and struck out 10 Bandits, said he liked playing in the morning because he didn’t have to kill time during the day.
“Instead of waiting around all day until about five and coming to the game, you can just wake up and play ball,” he said.
First baseman Blair Barbier gave Lansing a 3-2 lead by smacking Bandit pitcher Brian Wolfe’s offering over the left field wall with two outs in the sixth.
In the bottom of the seventh, Lansing struck with two outs once again, dropping six runs on the Bandits before adding two more in the eighth.
Blasi, who made a crucial base-running error in the late innings of Sunday’s loss to Quad City, sparked Lansing’s six-run seventh by collecting his third RBI of the day.
“The first two were real big, real important for me because I’ve definitely been struggling at the plate lately,” Blasi said. “I’ve been having trouble with a lot of things mentally and out in the field hitting, running the bases and everything. It was good to get something like that to help the team out, give us an edge and make me feel better about myself.”
Lansing’s two-out heroics impressed manager Julio Garcia, who said he couldn’t remember seeing a game in which a team scored all of its runs with two outs.
“It’s good to see the team playing the way they are capable of playing,” he said. “We hit the ball well, clutch hitting, timely hitting and two-strike hitting. So it was a good effort all the way around.”
