Troy, NY (July 23, 2022) – For the second night in a row, the Gateway Grizzlies could not keep the Tri-City ValleyCats from scoring runs in bunches, allowing a season-high 20 hits (including four home runs) in losing 13-5 at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium for their fourth defeat in a row overall. 

Yet again, the run-scoring started in the first, as Denis Phipps hit a seeing-eye single down the third base line to score Cito Culver and make it 1-0 Tri-City. A leadoff walk in the third inning would lead to another run for the ValleyCats and a 2-0 lead, but J.P. Williams (2-6) was able to work around the trouble to minimize the damage. 

Gateway then scored a pair of runs in the top of the fourth on RBI doubles by Isaac Benard and Trevor Achenbach to tie the score at 2-2, the first time in the series they had been tied after the first inning. But in the bottom of the inning, things fell apart again for Gateway, as a leadoff triple followed by an RBI single by former Grizzlie Mitch Piatnik immediately made it 3-2, and later in the inning, both Brantley Bell and Phipps would hit two-run homers off Williams, making the score 7-2 Tri-City. 

Andrew Penner would hit an RBI single, and Benard would follow with a sac fly in the next inning to get Gateway back within 7-4, but again, the Grizzlies’ pitching could not execute down the stretch, as the ValleyCats scored one more run in the fifth, three in the sixth, and two in the eighth to complete the onslaught. The Grizzlies scored their final run in the ninth on an RBI single by Ian Bibiloni, but it was not enough as Gateway dropped under the .500 mark at 29-30 while losing their second-straight series. 

Gateway will conclude the weekend in the series finale on Sunday, July 24, at 4:00 p.m. CT. Manuel Rodriguez is scheduled to make his first start in a Grizzlies uniform against Tri-City’s Austin Faith at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium.