Snider Leads Lugnuts to Victory

LANSING – With seven games left in the regular season, the Lansing Lugnuts are rolling towards the playoffs at full speed. Lansing won its sixth straight contest by thumping the Dayton Dragons 10-5 at Oldsmobile Park Tuesday night. It also marks the ninth consecutive victory at home for the Lugnuts.

Lansing led 1-0 in the second when Brian Pettway smacked an opposite field homer to right that pushed the advantage to 2-0. Two more runs would cross the dish later in the frame on an RBI single by Jonathan Diaz and a run scoring groundout by Chris Emanuele.

Dayton gashed into the lead in the third though as they got back-to-back homers from Drew Stubbs and Juan Francisco to pull wiithin one at 4-3.

The Lugnuts were able to answer back with one in the third before opening up a more sizeable lead in the fourth. Already up 5-3, Jonthan Jaspe delivered his second RBI single of the night to put Lansing ahead 6-3. Pettway later drew a bases loaded walk to make it a 7-3 affair.

The Dragons scored twice more in the sixth to cut the lead back to two runs, however the Lugnuts received a two-run homer from Travis Snider in the bottom half of the frame to put the game away. It was his 15th blast of the season and ran his league leading RBI total to 91.

Nate Starner (12-9) wasn't sharp, but did pick up the win for the Lugnuts by throwing five innings and allowing all five Dragon runs on nine hits.

Po-Hsuan Keng and Zach Dials combined to hold Dayton off of the scoreboard over the final four frames.

The win secures the best record for Lansing (73-60, 38-26) since becoming a Blue Jays affiliate in 2005. The Lugnuts will take on Dayton (76-58, 32-32) again Wednesday at Oldsmobile Park.