Sunday, October 17, 2010

Cannibals Take LCS Opener vs HHA


Despite the 5,792 road trip (2,756 of which were over water, and hence not strictly speaking "road trip" miles), the Lake Champlain Cannibals started the first inning of their first playoff game in 6 years in fine form.

With Hawaiian hurler Justin Verlander (15-14, 4.72, 273 k's) taking the Honolulu hill in Game 1, Cannibal hitters knew they needed to get to the "normally gets stronger as the game goes on" horse early. Lake Champlain leadoff hitter Nick Johnson took his pre-game instructions most literally, as he jumped on the first pitch and took it out of the tidy Hawaiian yard for a 1-0 LCC lead.

The Cannibals never looked back, adding a 3rd-inning run on an Adam Lind RBI double, and 2 more runs in the 4th on a Ryan Zimmerman 2-run blast.

Erik Bedard (2-3, 4.82) went 5 scoreless innings for the win before giving way to horse-faced workhorse Mike Wuertz (8-5, 3.99, 98 k's). Wuertz pulled the plow for 3 innings, punching out 7 Hawaiians before delivering the package to Jose's Valverde and Mijares, who closed out the 9th on the 5-2 Cannibal win.

LCC leads the LCS 1 game to 0.

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