By JOHN BOHNENKAMP
The second half of the Prospect League season is here for the Burlington Bees, but Saturday’s 8-5 loss to the Danville Dans at Community Field felt a lot like some of the Bees’ first-half defeats.
The Bees (11-15 overall) fell behind twice in the first three innings and chased the Dans (16-10) for the rest of the night, and that’s something that manager Owen Oreskovich said his team cannot do to be successful.
“It’s tough asking your offense to score runs when you’re down 4-0 or whatever after three innings,” Oreskovich said. “That’s a tough thing to do. If we have to do it, we have to be able to do it, but you know. it’s a tough thing to do.”
The Bees were down 2-0 in the bottom of the second inning before Rowen Bergeron’s two-run home run tied the game. Danville got two runs in the top of the third inning and never trailed after that.
“We’re got to be able to throw up zeros after scoring runs,” Oreskovich said. “We have all the momentum, and then you just give it away right back to them. That’s hard. It’s hard as hitters to be able to have to bring the momentum every single time. If we have to do it, we have to do it, but we didn’t do it tonight and didn’t get zeros when we needed.”
The big inning also has been eluding the Bees as of late. They got two quick runs in the seventh inning when Jase Figuereo walked, Juan Fernandez hit his second triple of the game to score Figuereo, then Lucas Krebs hit a sacrifice fly to score Fernandez. Adam Kudronowicz and Tanner Reinartz each walked, but Troy Peltz hit a fly out to center field and Bergeron popped out to end the inning.
Drew Ogden (3-0) was the winning pitcher. Riley Fuller (1-2) took the loss.
The Bees play host to the Clinton LumberKings in a 4 p.m. game on Sunday.
Photo: Bees shortstop Juan Fernandez fields a grounder in the first inning of Saturday’s game. (Photo by Steve Cirinna)
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