Seventeen Bee’s Fanned In Lansing Victory

The year did not start out well for Lansing starter Kyle Ginley. He struggled through the first half of the season and did not earn his first victory of the year until his final start of the first half.

Since the all star break, Ginley’s luck has changed, as he and the rest of the pitching staff provided perhaps the most dominant pitching performance to date as they were able to strike out seventeen hitters total in the a 6-1 victory over the Burlington Bees in front of 11,104 fans at Oldsmobile Park.

Ginley set the tone early for the night as he struck out nine hitters (seven of which would come consecutively) in only five innings of work while allowing only a single unearned run.

One would think that Ginley was keeping hitters guessing all night, however, it was his dominating fastball with good location that was a recipe for his success.

“He has to work off of his fastball because he has such a good one,” stated Lansing catcher Josh Liuzza. “Every once in awhile we would mix in a slider, a curve ball or a change up to keep them off balance but really he was dominating with his fastball. He was overpowering”.

The bad part about striking out so many hitters in such a short span is that it will drive your pitch count up early. The effects of the added pitches seem to show in the top of the fifth as the first four Burlington hitters would reach base before Ginley would retire the next three consecutively to get out of trouble virtually unscathed.

“I was starting to run out of gas a little bit”, stated Ginley.

“I was starting to get my pitches elevated more and my pitches started to flatten out. My pitch count got up there quick. That is the only downfall of striking a lot of guys out”.

Offensively the Lugnuts again flexed their muscle as all but two of the Lansing hitters in the line up would collect hits.

Matt Lane returned from the suspended list to have the biggest night going 3-for-4 with a home run and two runs scored in his return.

“Everything felt really good tonight,” stated Lane.

“I took some extra swings during my break because I didn’t have to worry about playing in any games. Everything just came together really well tonight and I got some good pitches to hit”.

With the victory, the Lugnuts improve to 16-11 on the second half, good for second place in the Eastern Division. Since league leading West Michigan has already qualified for the playoffs, Lansing is the top runner for a playoff spot in the Eastern Division as they hold a 3.0 game lead over South Bend and a 3.5 game lead over Fort Wayne.

Returning From Suspension

Lansing infielder Matt Lane returned to the line up for the first time Friday night after serving a ten game suspension for his role in a bench clearing brawl in West Michigan as he delivered a fore arm to the head of the West Michigan hitting coach.

“It was a weird situation, I didn’t even remember what happened”, Lane stated about the incident.

“It was unfortunate and afterwards I felt really bad about the whole thing but it is time to move on now”.

In his return to the line up, Matt Lane spent his time playing a position that he has not played yet this year…..Third base. Lane’s time at third will most likely increase as former Lansing third baseman Josh Bell was released on Friday. The former catcher saw his 2006 campaign cut short after suffering a concussion during a home plate collision last year. Since that hit, Bell never seemed to recover back to his former self.