Five-Run Seventh Powers Bandits to Second-Straight Win Over Rattlers

Davenport, Iowa – The Quad Cities River Bandits busted a pitcher’s duel with a five-run seventh inning Friday, as the surge led the Royals’ High-A affiliate to a second consecutive win over the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, 6-2 at Modern Woodmen Park.

After a one-hour and three-minute rain delay, right-hander Luinder Avila returned to the Modern Woodmen Park for the first time since 2023 and took the mound to begin a minor league rehabilitation assignment.

The 23-year-old picked up a pair of strikeouts in his lone inning, but allowed the Timber Rattlers to take a 1-0 lead when fellow minor league-rehabber Steward Berroa scored from third on a wild pitch.

Though Felix Arronde would follow Avila with 4.0-scoreless innings of relief, Wisconsin would maintain the one-run advantage until the sixth inning, thanks to Manuel Rodriguez. The 19 year-old Rattlers’ starter scattered just three hits over 5.1-scoreless innings in addition to seven strikeouts, but Quad Cities wasted little time tying the game against his replacement, Stiven Cruz in the sixth.

After Blake Mitchell drew a one-out walk, Daniel Vazquez’s third double of the series advanced the game-tying run to third. The next batter, Callan Moss, tied the game 1-1 with an RBI-groundout.

Tommy Molsky threw nothing but strikes in a perfect top of the sixth and then completed a clean seventh to keep the game knotted, before Quad Cities blew the game open in the home half, taking advantage of Carter Frederick’s leadoff walk and an Eduardo Garcia error with Erick Torres’s two-run triple. RBI-singles from Sam Kulasingam and Vazquez moved the Bandits ahead 5-1, before Moss ripped an RBI-double to knock Cruz out of the game.

Jack Seppings took over and not only ended the rally but tossed a scoreless eighth, but Bandits’ reliever Zachary Cawyer would also post a zero in the eighth and surrendered a lone concession run on a ninth inning wild pitch before closing out the ballgame.

Molsky (2-1) earned the win with his fifth scoreless effort in his last six outings, while Cruz (1-2) was charged with a loss and a blown save for Wisconsin, allowing six runs, three earned, over 1.1 innings.

Leading the series two games to one, the River Bandits return to Modern Woodmen Park for game five of their set with the Rattlers tomorrow night and send Drew Beam (4-7, 3.54) to the mound opposite Tanner Gillis (1-1, 2.30). First pitch is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.