Slammers Bear Down on Grizzlies Again

Oak Lawn’s Erik Lis hit two home runs and New Lenox native Josh Flores tripled twice as the Slammers defeated the Gateway Grizzlies by a final score of 9-2 Wednesday night.

With the win the Slammers move to a season high 11 games over .500 and match their longest winning streak of the season with their third consecutive victory.

Windy City and Traverse City lost on Wednesday so Joliet is a season best 4.5 games up in the East Division.

Joliet’s offense continued to tear apart Gateway pitching as they jumped on Sean Toler in the first inning.

Flores started the game with a double and Saint Francis alum Brad Netzel doubled him home. One out later Lis singled to right and Netzel scored from second thanks to an error by right fielder Joe Agreste.

The 2-0 lead was cut in half in the bottom of the first as Kent Gerst homered off Tommy Mendoza to start the inning.

With two outs and nobody on in the second Ben Hewett singled and Flores tripled him home to extend the lead back to two runs. They tacked on one more in the third on a Lis solo homer. 

Charlie Lisk got to Mendoza for a solo home run of his own in the fourth, but that was all the right-hander would allow. Mendoza went five innings, giving up the two runs on four hits. He walked two and struck out three on his way to the victory.

Jeremy Tietze, Chuck Lukanen, and Ryan Quigley combined to throw four shutout innings out of the bullpen to secure the win.