One night after a heart-breaking walk-off loss to the Quad Cities River Bandits at Modern Woodmen Park, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers found themselves trying to protect a late, one-run lead against the Bandits. This time the Rattlers held on for a 5-4 win as Sam Gardner got a huge strikeout to end the game with the tying run at second and the winning run at the plate.
Joe Gray Jr gave the Rattlers (5-3, 31-41) the lead in the top of the second inning. He was at the plate with the bases loaded and two outs when he lined a single to left to score two runs. Matt Wood followed with a two-run double to left and Wisconsin was up 4-0.
Hendry Mendez, in his first game with the Rattlers since May 10, added to the lead with a no-doubt, lead-off home run to right-center to start the third inning.
The River Bandits (2-6, 34-40) rallied for two runs off Wisconsin starter Jacob Misiorowski in their half of the third inning. Diego Hernandez tripled to start the inning. Gavin Cross knocked in Hernandez with a sacrifice fly and the Bandits had two outs with no one on base. However, Misiorowski walked Cayden Wallace to extend the inning. Carter Jensen made Wisconsin pay by lining a double to left-center to score Wallace to cut the Rattlers lead to three runs.
Misiorowski went back out for the fourth inning and retired the side in order to end his night. Misiorowski allowed two runs on two hits with two walks, two hit batsmen, and four strikeouts with 82 pitches – 44 strikes – in his four innings of work.
Nick Merkel, who pitched 3-1/3 scoreless innings in game one of the series, was the first reliever for the Rattlers. He worked a 1-2-3 fifth but ran into trouble in the sixth. Wallace singled to start the inning. Juan Carlos Negret hit a homer to left-center with one out and the Bandits were within a run. Merkel would give up a single to River Town before retiring the next two batters in the sixth and pitching a perfect seventh.
In the bottom of the eighth, Jensen doubled to start the frame. Merkel got the first out with a strikeout before turning the game over to Sam Gardner, who had a three inning save in game one of this series.
Gardner retired the next two batters to end the inning.
The bottom of the ninth started out with Gardner retiring the first two batters and the Rattlers were one out away from a win. Vaz, who had the walkoff, two-run single in the bottom of the ninth inning for the River Bandits on Saturday night, was standing in the way and he doubled to left to bring Cross to the plate as the potential winning run.
Cross, the first-round pick of the Kanas City Royals in the 2022 draft and their #1 prospect, had hit six homers and driven in sixteen runs against Wisconsin in 2023 as he headed into this at bat against Gardner, a minor league free agent signed by the Milwaukee Brewers off the roster of the Gateway Grizzlies, a team in the independent Frontier League exactly one month ago.
Gardner got ahead of Cross with two quick strikes. Cross fouled off the next pitch. Gardner got Cross to swing and miss at the next pitch for strike three to end the game for his second save of the series.
The series finale is set for Monday evening at Modern Woodmen Park. Cameron Wagoner (1-9, 6.96) is the scheduled starting pitcher for the Timber Rattlers. William Fleming (2-2, 4.23) is set to start for Quad Cities. Game time is 5:00pm.
