SAUGET, Ill. — The Gateway Grizzlies dropped both games of a Tuesday doubleheader, 6-2 and 5-0, to the Southern Illinois Miners to open a four-game series at GCS Credit Union Ballpark.
Gateway (31-41) was narrowly denied a fourth straight win Sunday against Windy City, but has lost three in a row after Tuesday’s pair of defeats.
Southern Illinois (40-33) took the first lead in both games and never looked back to stretch its winning streak to six games. The Miners won eight straight earlier this year.
Gateway answered the Miners’ second-inning run in game one to tie the game 1-1 on a Brent Sakurai RBI walk that scored Matt Brown, but the Grizzlies did little damage thereafter and collected only five total hits — all singles — over 14 innings Tuesday.
Ian Kahaloa (1-5) and Thomas Nicoll (3-3), the starts of games one and two, respectively, took the losses.
Jason Seever, Dakota Smith, and Patrick Boyle all threw scoreless relief innings. Boyle tossed a perfect frame and struck out two.
Sakurai, Luke Lowery, Connor Owings, and Cletis Avery all had stolen bases. Owings was the only Grizzlie with a hit in both games; his soft liner into right field in the sixth inning was the only Grizzlies hit whatsoever in the second game.
Gateway and Southern Illinois will play the third game of their series Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. CDT.
