Forty-two games into their first season of Low-A baseball, a quartet of TinCaps pitchers have embraced the learning curve that comes with a jump from high school to the professional level.Lansing used a big first inning to defeat the TinCaps 5-4 Friday at Thomas M. Cooley Law School Stadium.
The Lugnuts scored four runs in the first inning to avoid a sweep in the finale of a three-game series.
Lansing had four doubles in the first against Fort Wayne starter James Needy.
Nick Baligod doubled and later scored the first run on a double by K.C. Hobson.
Kevin Patterson knocked in Hobson with a double. Patterson scored on a single by Michael Crouse. Chris Peters drove in Crouse with another double.
The TinCaps (31-22, 62-61 overall) scored one run in the third inning.
Kyle Gaedele led off the inning with a single. He advanced to second on a groundout and scored on a single by Jace Peterson.
The Lugnuts (28-23, 75-45) extended the lead to 5-1 with a run in the sixth.
Fort Wayne scored twice in the seventh. Travis Jankowski hit his first home run of the season. Gaedele walked and B.J. Guinn followed with a single to center. Gaedele scored when Crouse, the center fielder, made an error trying to field the ball. Gaedele and Peterson had two hits for Fort Wayne.
The TinCaps got a run in the ninth on a pinch-hit, two-out RBI single by Travis Whitmore. But Mike Gallic struck out to end the game.
