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Wild Things complete sweep of Lake Erie

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The Wild Things have done plenty of good things over the past month, including win 10 consecutive series. However, something they had accomplished only one time until Thursday night was sweep a series.

Rob Whalen pitched six innings for his league-leading seventh win, Ramon Osuna homered and the Wild Things defeated the Lake Erie Crushers, 7-4, in a slow-paced game for their first series sweep since mid-May and second of the season.

“If you feel like you’re the better team in the series, then you can’t let the opponent off the hook,” Washington manager Tom Vaeth said.

Vaeth added that after winning the first two games in a series earlier this month at Joliet, his team didn’t have the right mindset and lost the series finale against the Slammers.

“We felt satisfied just to win that series,” Vaeth said. “I reminded the guys that when you are a good team and become satisfied, then you become mediocre very quick.”

Washington’s only other sweep came May 20-22 against the Empire State Greys, who are 0-34. Yes, 0-34, so this was Washington’s first sweep against a competitive opponent.

Five Lake Erie pitchers weren’t always competitive as they combined to walk 12 Washington batters. The Crushers also committed three errors.

Whalen (7-1) gave up eight hits and two runs. He struck out two and did not walk a batter. Christian James followed with two innings and Lukas Young pitched the ninth.

“Rob gave us what you want from an ace,” Vaeth said. “He had some quick innings — I got him out of there after only 79 pitches. He put us in position to sweep a series.”

Washington scored in each of the first three innings against Lake Erie starter Julio Vivas (1-5) and led 4-0.

Chris Eusay and Scotty Dubrule hit consecutive singles in the bottom of the first to produce the game’s initial run. Dubrule’s double was deep to left field and landed just inside the foul line.

Osuna led off the second inning with a solo home run, his fifth of the season. Two batters later, Cole Brannen walked and stole second base on the first pitch of Matt Phipps’ at-bat. Phipps then singled to center field, scoring Brannen and giving Washington an early 3-0 lead.

Whalen breezed through the first three innings in only 34 pitches and Washington gave him a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the inning. Andrew Czech drew a leadoff walk and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Osuna.

The Crushers pushed across single runs in the fourth and sixth innings to close to within 4-2, but the Wild Things again pulled away with two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh for a 7-2 advantage.

In the sixth, Nick Ward drew a leadoff walk, stole second base and scored on an error, and Wagner Lagrange drove in Dubrule with a double. In the seventh, Brannen scored from third base when Chris Eusay stole second and the throw from the Lake Erie catcher went into center field.

Brannen tied the Wild Things’ single-game record with four stolen bases. It had been accomplished three other times, the most recent by Darian Sanford in a 2012 game against Schaumburg. Brannen leads the league with 21 stolen bases.

Washington stole nine bases in the game.

Lake Erie closed to within 7-4 when Jake Gitter hit a two-run homer in the eighth, but all that did was set up Young, the Wild Things’ closer, for his sixth save.

Washington left 10 runners on base, including eight in scoring position, and had one runner thrown out at home plate.

“We should have made it a lot easier than it was,” Veath said. “Credit (the Crushers) because they got some strikeouts with runners on third base.”

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