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River Bandits sweep Loons

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By Steve Batterson | Friday, May 09, 2008 | No comments posted

Outside of Modern Woodmen Park, crews were filling sandbags late Saturday evening.

Inside the park, the Quad-Cities River Bandits were breaking out the brooms.

Quad-Cities swept a Midwest League doubleheader against Great Lakes, following a 6-4 win in the opener with the first shutout of the season in the nightcap.

Newcomer Mark Diapoules and Justin Fiske combined on a two hitter, striking out 11 Loons in a 4-0 victory which extended the River Bandits’ win streak to four games.

The victories were the first of the season in a doubleheader for Quad-Cities, which had been shutout in four previous games played as part of twin bills.

“We gave ourselves a chance by getting up early,’’ said Andrew Brown, who drove two runs home in the opener and plated the only runs the River Bandits needed in the nightcap when he hit a two-run single in the bottom of the first inning.

“In a seven-inning game, it’s big when you can score early and we did that in both of these games. We got the bats going, played some defense and got the pitching we needed to make it work.’’

Manager Steve Dillard said he appreciated the fact that it seemed to be a collective effort from a team whose batting average has risen from under .200 after the first week of the season to .247 following Saturday’s doubleheader.

“It’s not just one guy. That’s the great thing. We’re getting a little something from everybody,’’ Dillard said.

That included from Diapoules, who gave up a pair of singles in the first two innings of his Quad-Cities’ debut but faced the minimum over the final three innings of a five-inning start.

The 6-foot-2 right-hander from Palm City, Fla., struck out seven and walked just two Loons to earn the win.

Fiske followed by striking out four during a pair of 1-2-3 innings out of the pen.

“Diapoules, we saw a little bit of him in spring (training), and he did a good job of coming out and throwing strikes,’’ Dillard said.

In the opener, Charlie Kingrey’s second double of the game allowed Quad-Cities to finish off a two-out rally in the sixth inning and claim a 6-4 victory in the opener.

Kingrey’s gap-splitting two-base hit came after Great Lakes reliever Bobby Blevins recorded the first two outs of the inning before the Bandits’ Jose Garcia reached on an infield single.

Garcia advanced to second on a single by Pete Kozma before Kingrey knocked home the game-winning runs.

Kenley Jansen drove home all four of the Loons’ runs in the opener, belting a pair of homers including a two-run blast in the sixth which erased the 4-2 lead Quad-Cities had taken in the bottom of the fifth on Brown’s RBI single.

“We’ve been working on a few things the last few days to help me get ready, get set and see the ball better and it seems be making a difference,’’ said Brown, who hit his team-leading fourth homer of the season in the bottom of the second of the opener to give the River Bandits a 1-0 lead.

Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.