SOUTH BEND, INDIANA (May 10, 2021) — With a chance to eclipse the .500 mark for the first time in 2021, the Quad Cities River Bandits won their third straight game on Saturday, 8 May, as they defeated the South Bend Cubs 5-1 at Four Winds Field behind a scoreless start on the mound and a pair of long-balls at the plate.
As they had done in all three games of their modest winning-streak, the Bandits scored in the opening inning, tagging Cubs’ starter and 2019 Draft first-round pick, Ryan Jensen, with a two-RBI triple off the bat of Seuly Matais, which put QC up 2-0.
After allowing a two-out walk to Cam Balego in the second, right-hander Grant Gambrell settled in early for the visiting squad as he retired six of his first seven batters faced heading into the third.
Having spent the first three games in Quad Cities’ nine-hole, John Rave rewarded Chris Widger’s decision to pencil him into the leadoff spot as the former Illinois State product laced a ball off the right-field video-board for his first hit and first four-bagger of the season, putting his team up 3-0.
Two batters later, first-baseman Vinnie Pasquantino smacked a solo-jack of his own off of the nearly the same location on the Cubs’ video-board to push the Bandits’ lead to 4-0 through two-and-a-half.
Over their next three frames at the plate, South Bend could muster little off of Gambrell, who faced one over the minimum from the third to the fifth, where his day concluded at five scoreless innings and just 63 pitches thrown.
Quad Cities added another run to their lead in the top of the sixth on an Eric Cole RBI single, while the home team got on the board for the first and only time in the bottom half when reliever Will Klein traded a run for two outs on a 4-6-3 double-play.
The final third of the game was kept quiet by left-hander Garrett Davila — who allowed just two baserunners and struck out three over the stretch — and the Cubs’ trio of Chris Allen, Alex Katz, and Garrett Kelly who scatted three more Bandits hits before their own bats went down uneventfully in the bottom of the ninth.
Gambrell (1-0) earned his first win in as many starts for Quad Cities, while Ryan Kelly’s (0-1) début ended with the loss and four earned over three, despite five strikeouts. Davila (1) earned a nine-out save in his second appearance of the season — the Bandits’ second multi-inning save this year.
ABOUT THE BANDITS: The 2021 season marks the River Bandits’ first year as a new Advanced-A major-league affiliate. As such, the team will be offering higher-quality baseball than has ever before been played in the Quad Cities. Additionally, the Bandits will welcome a new MLB affiliate to the Quad Cities, the Kansas City Royals. The River Bandits anchor the Quad Cities sports-market, which The Sports Business Journal named the top minor-league sports-market in the country in 2015 and second-best minor-league market in its 2017 follow-up ranking. In 2015, 2017, and again in 2019, the River Bandits earned Ballpark Digest’s award for “Best Charitable Works” in Minor League Baseball, the only club to win that coveted award three times.
