Gil fans 13; Greyhounds down Roadrunners 7-1

Austin Greyhounds ace lefty Yean Carlos Gill struck out 13 and scattered four hits in eight stellar innings, and the Hounds offense gave him plenty of run support in a 7-1 win over the Rochester Roadrunners in a Twin Rivers League matchup Sunday night at Marcusen Park.

Austin tallied a run in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead, and Rochester scored what turned out to be their only run of the game in the top of the third to knot the game at one apiece.  The Hounds took the lead for good in the bottom half of the inning when Dan Bollingberg singled, Jordan Hart follwed two batters later with a RBI triple, and Steve Serratore then followed Hart with a RBI double to increase Austin’s lead to 3-1.  The game was scoreless until the bottom of the seventh when the bottom half of the Hounds’ order got things going.

Third baseman Tony Ciola reached on an error, second baseman Jack Dankert then bunted and reached on a throwing error, sending Ciola to third.  Dankert stole second, but Roadrunners reliever David Dahlstrom retired the next two batters.  He then had to face Hart, who lined a huge two-out, two-run single down the right field line to score Ciola and Dankert and increased the Hounds lead to 5-1.

Austin added two more runs in the bottom of the eighth when pinch hitter Riley Retterath started a two-out rally with a single to center.  Michael O’Connor, who was also sent in to pinch-hit followed with a double to put men at second and third for Bollingberg, who promptly lined a two-run single into left field to increase Austin’s lead to 7-1.

Gil did the rest on the mound as he was able to strand four Roadrunners on base through the first three innings, three of them at second base.  They stranded single runners in the fifth and sixth innings before Gil really settled in and retired six in a row through the seventh and eighth innings.  Gil gave up the one Rochester run on four hits, he struck out 13 batters, walked only two and hit a batter.  Steve Serratore came on to pitch a scoreless ninth in relief.

With the win, the Greyhounds are now 4-1 in Twin Rivers League play and 5-3 overall on the season.  Austin is off until Friday night, when they kick off a stretch of three games in as many days at Pine Island, with first pitch at 7:30 p.m.  The Hounds will stay on the road at Waseca for a 7:00 p.m. game Saturday night before returning to Marcusen Park Sunday against Wanamingo.  The Skipjacks are not able to use their field this year, so they will actually be the home team for that game Sunday night in Austin at 6:00 p.m.