Fort Wayne’s Jace Peterson hit a sinking line drive to left field with the bases loaded in the fourth inning. Lansing’s Kevin Pillar dived and made a catch to end the inning.

Two innings later, Duanel Jones hit a hard grounder to first. The ball bounced away from K.C. Hobson but went right to second baseman Jon Berti, who threw Jones out.

Fort Wayne didn’t catch many breaks Monday against the Lugnuts. The TinCaps didn’t help themselves much either, making four errors in a 6-2 loss to Lansing in front of 6,134 fans at Parkview Field.

“We have to play better defense,” TinCaps manager Jose Valentin said. “You can’t afford to do that when your offense doesn’t show up.”

The TinCaps (2-2, 33-41 overall) collected nine hits but lacked the clutch hits. Fort Wayne went 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position.

“The last couple of games we’ve been hitting the ball pretty well and getting our hits, just not always in the biggest situations,” said Mike Gallic, who went 2 for 4. “And they made some good plays.”

Lansing (3-1, 50-23) scored four runs in the third inning off of Fort Wayne starter Matt Wisler. The right-hander from Bryan, Ohio, came into the game with a stretch of two earned runs in 22 innings.

“This wasn’t as good as it’s been,” Wisler said. “My stuff was off today, my location wasn’t very good. I was not very consistent. The first couple of innings was pretty good. Once I went from the stretch in the third inning, I kind of struggled there.”

Wisler gave up four runs on seven hits in four innings. He struck out four and walked one. “I wasn’t on top of the ball (in the third inning), I left everything up and got hit,” he said. “They are a really good hitting team, obviously. They can make you pay for mistakes and I made too many tonight.”

Fort Wayne rallied in the fourth. Lee Orr, Yeison Asencio and Gallic singled to load the bases against Lansing starter Justin Nicolino.

“We noticed he was working a lot off his offspeed stuff, even in the count and even when he was behind,” Gallic said. “ … We made that adjustment and started cheating a little less on his fastball and stated squaring some balls up.”

Duanel Jones drove in two runs with a two-out single to get Fort Wayne within 4-2.

“Jones was struggling swinging the bat,” Valentin said. “The second half, he’s been a different hitter.

“Right now, in the four games, he’s the best hitter that we have. Not only does he get hits, but he gets hits when we have to, with men in scoring position.”

Kyle Gaedele walked to load the bases again. Peterson then hit the liner to left and Pillar came up with the biggest play of the game.

“Sometimes there is nothing you can do about it,” Valentin said. “You just have to keep the same approach (at the plate).”

Lansing added two insurance runs in the seventh.

lpope@jg.net