News release from the TinCaps:
Effective Eflin Excels in TinCaps Shutout Win
(August 5, 2013) – Zach Eflin dazzled in front of a crowd of 5,201 at Parkview Field on Monday night, guiding the TinCaps to a 2-0 victory over the Lansing Lugnuts with seven superb innings on the mound. The 19-year-old stymied Lansing to the tune of just one hit and one walk, while striking out four. Jorge Guzman and Chris Nunn came out of Fort Wayne’s bullpen to preserve the shutout with one scoreless inning of work each.
Lansing’s only hit against Eflin came from Jordan Leyland with one out in the top of the second inning. The Lugnuts, who have been no-hit three times this season, didn’t pick up their second hit of the game until the ninth against Nunn. After a third-inning inning two-out walk drawn by Dwight Smith Jr., who had the ninth-inning single, Eflin (6-5) retired the final 13 batters he faced. Fifty-three of the right-hander’s 80 pitches were strikes. He threw more than two balls to only two batters in the game.
Since the start of May, Eflin’s ERA is 2.20 – second best in the entire Midwest League during that span.
With Eflin dominating, Fort Wayne secured the only run it would prove to need in the bottom of the first. Mallex Smith led off with a single to center field and stole his Midwest League-leading 50th base of the season to move into scoring position. Gabriel Quintana then plated Smith with a two-out RBI single – his third straight game with an RBI – to give the TinCaps a 1-0 lead. Fort Wayne (16-27, 58-53) built its lead to 2-0 in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Corey Adamson.
On the other side, Lansing (17-27, 49-64) left-hander Matt Boyd (0-1) proved to be a tough-luck loser. In only the second start of his professional career after he was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the sixth round of June’s draft out of Oregon State, Boyd held the TinCaps to one run on three hits in four innings.
The pitchers’ duel was played at a rapid pace of 2 hours, 1 minute. With the win, the TinCaps have won back-to-back games for the first time since July 14 and 15 at Beloit.
Fort Wayne and Lansing play the finale of their five-game series at Parkview Field on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. The TinCaps are set to start lefty Max Fried (4-5, 3.69) against Lugnuts righty Kendall Graveman. The game can be heard on The Fan 1380 and TheFanFortWayne.com, and seen on XFINITY Channel 81.
Related Images:
