The Chillicothe Mudcats’ recent losing skid continued with a fourth straight defeat on Monday night, losing for a second time this season to the St. Joseph Mustangs, at Shaffer Park by a final score of 11-1.
The Mustangs scored two runs early in the first inning, before the Mudcats cut into the lead with a Jackson Crawford RBI single that scored Rafael Calcano in the bottom of the third. That made the score 2-1 in St. Joseph’s favor.
Unfortunately, that would be the only inning in the game where any Mudcats runners would reach base. The Mustangs pitching staff shut down Chillicothe’s hitters from there, retiring the next 18 consecutive batters from the fourth inning all the way into the ninth.
The Mustangs offense scored three runs in the fifth inning off of Mudcats starter Jesus Santos, three in the sixth off Steven Escarcega, and two in the seventh inning off of Brennan Kettle to pad their lead. In each of those innings, the Mudcats pitcher committed an error on attempts to pick off a runner on first base, leading to three Mustangs runs being unearned.
St. Joseph would score one more run in the ninth to make it a 10-run lead, and their victory made them a perfect 4-0 in the MINK League so far this season.
Chillicothe finishes their first week of action this summer with a 3-4 record, winning three straight to start the season, and losing four consecutive games following that stretch. They will face off against the Mustangs twice in the next week, once on Saturday in St. Joseph, and again this upcoming Sunday at Shaffer Park.
The Mudcats now will get two much needed off days on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week before beginning another difficult stretch of five games in five straight days. The first game in that run will be on Thursday at home against the Warren County Cropdusters, from Des Moines, Iowa. The first pitch will be at 7:05, and you can listen to that game and much more about the Chillicothe Mudcats on KCHI and kchi.com.
