Back in First!

The Beach Bums are back in first place!!! Traverse City held off Kalamazoo last night 5-3 to pull even with the Kings in the standings at 7-3...What a tremendous outing by Brett Bostelman...On a night when the Beach Bums needed an extended start after having to go to the bullpen on Thursday in the second inning, Bostelman threw seven innings for his first quality start and his first win as a starter...He tossed five innings and allowed five runs in a loss at Washington during his first start...Jeff Brown drove in three as the Beach Bums scored five unanswered runs to open a 5-1 lead...

My Full Game Recap

Notes from the Game
The Beach Bums are 3-0 coming off of a loss and are 3-1 in the first game of a series...Traverse City lost 5-1 at Washington on May 25 but won 10-2 against the Wild Things on May 26...After losing 7-1 on May 27, the Beach Bums battled back to knock off Chillicothe 8-2 on the 28th...

Traverse City is 2-0 wearing the White uniforms...The starting pitcher picks what uniforms to wear...The Beach Bums also debuted the new white billed hat last night...

In every Beach Bums win this season the opposing starting pitcher has failed to make it out of the fifth inning...Joe DiPietro tossed 3.2 innings for the Kings, the longest outing in a win was by Midwest's Joey Doan in the second game of the season, 4.1 innings...By contrast in every Beach Bums win the starting pitcher has gone at least six innings and all seven have been quality starts (6 innings, Three runs or less)...The starting pitcher has been involved in the decision of every game thus far in 2008...

Brad Miller saw his nine-game hit streak come to a close while Mike Goetz extended his streak to 10 games...Goetz and Kalamazoo's Chad Rothford are the lone individuals in the league to have hit safely in the season's first 10 games...

Mike Epping stole second and third on consecutive pitches in the second inning...Epping has six steals, the most in the Frontier League...The Beach Bums stole four bases last night and lead the league with 20 stolen bases...Rockford is second with 18...Jeff Brown and Steve Young also posted steals...

Speaking of Jeff Brown...The Beach Bums utility man had just one hit entering the game last night but went 2-for-3 with 3RBI...Brown has been thrust into the starting role at third base with Matt Imwalle out...Brown's average lifted from .077 to .158...

Jeff Williams notched his first save as a professional, entering with the bases loaded in the eighth inning and getting out of that jam before striking out two in the ninth...It was just the second save opportunity of the season for the Beach Bums...Nick Pepper was successful in the other save try against Midwest on May 22...

Kalamazoo's Mike Russell hit his fifth homer in the last four games, going deep off of Bostelman in the sixth to pull the Kings within 5-3 with his two-run shot...

Media
Traverse City Record-Eagle

Labatt Blue On Deck Show Interview
Sit Down With Sexton #1: John Sexton, Pitching Coach



Highlights
Jake Whitesides ties the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the first inning with his league leading 17th RBI



Jeff Brown drives in his first run of 2008 in the second inning to make it a 3-1 Beach Bums lead...



Jeff Brown doubles to make it a 5-1 lead in the fourth



Mike Russell homered in the sixth to bring Kalamazoo within 5-3



Jeff Williams strikes out Kalamazoo's Simon Williams to record his first professional save and put the Beach Bums back in first



League Media
I wanted to point you to a website that has all of the stories on the Frontier League teams published every night...Evansville finally lost last night...You can click here every day and read about every team in the Frontier League...

Frontier League Headlines