The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers were playing well on their two-week road trip to Michigan and that carried over to the first home game since June 4 with a 3-0 win over the Lansing Lugnuts at Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium on Tuesday night. Jacob Misiorowski, Karlos Morales, Brannon Jordan, and Luis Amaya held the Lugnuts to four hits as the Rattlers offense was opportunistic in scoring all their runs in the second inning.
Wisconsin (26-36) took advantage of some uncharacteristic mistakes by the Lugnuts to score three runs in the bottom of the second inning. Darrien Miller drew a walk and Eduardo García singled to start the inning. Ben Metzinger sent a slow grounder to short with one out and the throw to first was wild to let Miller score and García take third base. Lansing entered Wednesday’s game tied for second in the league in fielding percentage.
Lugnuts starting pitcher Joelvis Del Rosario compounded the error by throwing a wild pitch that allowed García to score and put Metzinger on second base. Je’Von Ward followed with an RBI single to score Metzinger for a 3-0 lead.
Misiorowski, Milwaukee’s top pitching prospect, worked 4-2/3 innings, walked two, allowed three hits, and struck out five without allowing a run. His biggest jam was in the fourth inning as he needed 27 pitches in the inning to work around two walks and a single to leave the bases loaded. In all, Misiorowski threw 86 pitches with 52 strikes before giving way to the Wisconsin bullpen one out shy of qualifying for the win in his home debut.
Morales got the final out of the fifth, tossed a scoreless sixth, and had two outs with a runner at third in the seventh before a walk to Max Muncy ended his night. Morales would pick up the win, his third of the season.
Jordan entered the game for Morales and got a strikeout to end that Lansing threat. He would work a 1-2-3 eighth inning.
The Lugnuts (29-34) would face Amaya in the top of the ninth inning. He got the first two outs before giving up a single to Danny Bautista to extend the game. Amaya, who picked up the save in Sunday’s road trip finale in Great Lakes, got the final out of the game on a flyball to center to seal Wisconsin’s second shutout of the season.
The last time the Timber Rattlers recorded a shutout was on April 19, in a 2-0 victory at Quad Cities.
Game two of the series is Wednesday afternoon. Cameron Wagoner (1-8, 7.66) is the scheduled starting pitcher for the Timber Rattlers. Lansing has Brady Basso (1-2, 2.70) as their starter. Game time is 12:10pm CDT.
