Miners rough up Recchia to hand T-Bolts third straight series loss
By Steve Millar For Sun-Times Media June 16, 2012 10:52PM
Updated: July 18, 2012 6:34AM
The Southern Illinois Miners continued their recent dominance of the Windy City ThunderBolts on Saturday, winning for the 12th time in 15 meetings between the former heated division rivals since 2010.
The Miners roughed up T-Bolts starter Mike Recchia and clinched a series win with a 10-3 victory at Standard Bank Stadium in Crestwood.
It’s the third straight series loss for Windy City (14-11).
After a strong start to the season, Crestwood native Recchia struggled for the second straight outing, allowing six earned runs on eight hits in 42/3 innings. He struck out three and walked four.
The Miners (17-10) consistently worked long at-bats, forcing Recchia to throw 113 pitches in the short outing, and a vast majority of the 3 hour, 25 minute contest was spent with the visitors at the plate.
The T-Bolts pounded out 11 hits but stranded nine runners on base and hit into four double plays.
Southern Illinois started the scoring on a solo homer from Cannon Lester in the second before breaking it open with a five-run fifth.
The Miners had three run-scoring doubles in the frame.
All of Windy City’s scoring came in the fifth when Mike Torres (2-for-4) drove in Travis Weaver (single) and Chris Wade (hit by pitch) with a two-run triple and scored on Zach Aakhus’ single.
The Miners added single runs in the sixth and seventh before scoring twice in the ninth.
Carlos Mendez tied a Miners record with five hits — all singles — in six at-bats.
Wade led the Windy City offense, each going 3-for-4 with three singles.
Southern Illinois ace David Harden (4-1) lasted eight innings despite surrendering 11 hits.
D-Backs sign Meyerchick
Before the game, T-Bolts pitcher Eric Meyerchick was signed by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Meyerchick pitched in just one game with Windy City, tossing a scoreless inning of relief.
Meyerchick is the 21st Windy City player signed by a major league organization in the last four seasons, most in the Frontier League in that span.
More moves
The T-Bolts also released Billy Nowlin and Bruce Alter and signed outfielder Robert Glover, a rookie out of the University of Dayton.
