SCHAUMBURG, Ill. – Finishing their 11-game road trip in a rubber match on Thursday afternoon, errors hurt the Evansville Otters as they allowed four unearned runs to the Schaumburg Boomers in a 6-5 loss.
The Otters (35-47) had the lead from early in the game until the late stages. They opened the scoring, plating two runs in the second inning. Randy Bednar roped an RBI double to right-center field and then later scored on a wild pitch. They added on in the third with a Pavin Parks RBI single to make it a 3-0 game.
In the home third, the Boomers (41-40) jumped on the scoreboard with one run. Answering in the fourth, Bednar homered to left-center, getting the run right back.
Trading another run, the Boomers plated one more in the home half of the fourth, making it 4-2.
Evansville marked the score column for the last time in the fifth inning. Gary Mattis led off with a double just after throwing a runner out at third base from right field to end the fourth. Parks followed with a flare shot to center to score another run.
The seesaw tipped back toward Schaumburg in the home fifth, leading to another two runs to pull within one — both were unearned on an error.
Trailing 5-4 in the seventh, the Boomers finalized the scoring with two runs, capitalizing off another two errors from the Otters’ defense to take the final lead of the game.
Grif Hughes (1-1) picked up his first loss of the year after pitching well and surrendering two unearned runs. Hambleton Oliver (1-3) was the winning pitcher, seeing two and one-third scoreless innings.
