Peoria, IL – Mike O’Reilly took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before giving up a bloop single as he struck out ten in the Peoria Chiefs 1-0 win over the Beloit Snappers on Saturday night at Dozer Park. The Chiefs improve to 15-25 overall and will wrap up their four-game series with Beloit on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at Dozer Park.
Brian O’Keefe gave the Chiefs a lead in the fourth inning with a solo home run to left field against Snappers starter Mitchell Jordan. O’Keefe’s third homer of the season gave Peoria a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning for the second straight night.
O’Reilly retired the first 14 Beloit hitters while racking up six strikeouts in that span. He issued a walk to Javon Shelby on a full-count pitch with two out in the fifth. With Collin Theroux batting, Shelby broke for second before getting caught in rundown and was tagged out by first baseman Stefan Trosclair. O’Reilly retired the next nine Snappers with five more strikeouts to take a no-hitter into the ninth on 88 pitches.
He started the ninth with a strikeout of Collin Theroux in an eight-pitch at-bat. With one out Edwin Diaz blooped the first pitch into right-center in front of a diving Bryce Denton for the first hit of the game. Yeison Medina, who joined the Chiefs earlier in the day came out of the bullpen for Peoria and walked Eric Marinez to put two on base. Medina bounced back to strike out both Mike Martin and Nate Mondou to end the game.
O’Reilly (1-0) went 8 1/3 innings, allowing one hit while striking out 10 with one walk in his first win of the season. Medina threw 2/3 of an inning, allowing a walk with two strikeouts for the Chiefs.
