Batavia dropped their third straight contest to the Auburn Doubledays on Saturday night by a 4-2 score. The Doubledays’ pitching staff kept the Batavia bats in check for the second straight game in another low-scoring affair.
Batavia put up their two runs on a total of six hits, which are each one higher than the season low they set the night before.
Humberto Mejia had a strong start for the Muckdogs. Despite picking up his second loss of the season, he pitched five innings, giving up just two runs on four hits and two walks, he also struck out three.
The Muckdogs would plate the first run of the game in the second inning when Igor Baez would hit the unconventional 9-6 fielder’s choice that brought Denis Karas from third. It would only take to the bottom of the third for Auburn to answer when they scored two runs to take the lead.
Both came around to score on one swing: a Gage Canning home run that cleared the right-field fence.
No more runs would score until the bottom of the sixth inning, and it would be another pair for the Doubledays.
After Chad Martin gave up back-to-back walks to start the bottom of the sixth, an RBI double from Jacob Rhinesmith brought in the first of the two. The second would be from the bottom man in the order, Phil Caulfield. His single brought Kyle Marincoz around to score and put the Doubledays in front by a 4-1 margin.
That would be all the offense that the Doubledays would see after Tanner Andrews would make his Muckdogs debut, and shut the door on Auburn.
The Muckdogs would plate one more run in the top of the eighth. Brayan Hernandez started the inning off with a walk and would get to second on a passed ball. Albert Guaimaro pushed Hernandez over to third with a groundout, which set up JD Osborne with an opportunity to cut the deficit. Osborne hit a ball to center field that would bring Hernandez in to score on the sacrifice fly and would cut the Auburn lead to two. Sean Reynolds would get lucky with a fly ball that turned into a two-out double to extend his hit streak to eight games.
However, that would be all that Batavia would score in the game, and would lead to a third-straight loss.
Batavia opens up a three-game homestand on Sunday against the West Virginia Black Bears, before going back on the road to face the Pickney Division leader, Mahoning Valley.
