The Lansing Lugnuts grabbed a 5-0 lead and held on for a 5-3 victory over the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Wednesday night at Neuroscience Group Field. A fluky inside-the-park home run in the fifth gave Lansing a 1-0 lead and they added four runs in the sixth for what turned out to be an insurmountable lead.
Neither starting pitcher allowed a run. Both reached their scoreless outings in very different ways.
Wisconsin starter J.D. Thompson, in his second start with the Rattlers off their injured list, walked one and struck out five over four scoreless, hitless innings before reaching his pitch limit. In his two starts since rejoining the active roster, Thompson has allowed an unearned run and struck out eleven in 6-2/3 innings.
Lansing starting pitcher Devin Kirby tossed five scoreless frames despite walking three and allowing four hits. He escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth by snaring a line drive up the middle and turning it into a double play. The Rattlers had runners at first and second with one out in the fifth when Kirby got an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play.
DL Hall, in his second rehab appearance for the Timber Rattlers, relieved Thompson in the top of the fifth. Hall struck out the first two batters. C.J. Pittaro was next for Lansing, and he hit a slicing popup down the line in left. Tyler Rodriguez made a dive for the ball and missed it. The ball landed in fair territory and rolled away from Rodriguez, who was slow to get up after the ball. Pittaro raced around the bases for an inside-the-park homer and a 1-0 lead.
Hall bounced back to strike out the next batter to end his night on thirteen pitches, ten strikes.
The Lugnuts (41-54 overall, 11-20 second half) added to their lead in the top of the sixth against reliever Daniel Corniel. The first two batters of the inning reached on singles. Jake Reinisch brought them in on a three-run homer for a 4-0 lead. Later in the inning Pedro Pineda singled home another run, and the Rattlers were down by five.
Eric Bitonti immediately cut into that deficit with a lead-off home run in the bottom of the sixth against Lansing reliever Griffin Kirn. The homer was his sixteenth of the season.
That home run was also the 116th of the season for the Timber Rattlers as a team. The 2026 team is one homer off the franchise record of 117 that was set in 2021.
Wisconsin (50-43, 16-15) cashed in two more runs in the inning. An errant throw on a potential inning-ending double play allowed Filippo Di Turi to score all the way from first base. Edgardo Ord?ñez greeted reliever Luis Carrasco with an RBI double to left-center to score pinch-runner Luiyin Alastre.
That was as close as the Rattlers would get as they wasted a lead-off single in the seventh and a lead-off walk in the eighth. Blaze Pontes pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth for his third save as he nailed down the win for the visitors.
Game three of the series is Thursday night at Neuroscience Group Field. Kyle Harrison of the Milwaukee Brewers is set to make the start for the Timber Rattlers on a rehabilitation assignment. The Lugnuts have named Jorge Marcheco (0-0, 2.00) as their starting pitcher. Game time is 6:40pm.
