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In the first professional baseball game at historic Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois in 23 years, 23-year-old Gateway Grizzlies rookie Teague Conrad (6-3) turned in the best performance of his young career on the mound, going the distance in a nine-inning, three-hit shutout as the Grizzlies blanked the Lake Erie Crushers 5-0 on Tuesday night.
Gateway got on the board right away against Lake Erie starter Pedro Echemendia (2-6), with Gabe Holt and Abdiel Diaz greeting the right-hander with back-to-back singles in the first inning. After a fly ball moved Holt to third base, Peter Zimmermann hit a ground ball to shortstop that was mishandled by Lake Erie’s Jarrod Watkins for an error, allowing Zimmermann to reach first base and scoring Holt from third to make it 1-0 Gateway.
The Grizzlies would add on in the bottom of the fourth inning by sending eight men to the plate and scoring three runs on an RBI double by D.J. Stewart and RBI singles by both Jose Alvarez and Holt, making the score 4-0. In the fifth, Kevin Krause remained red-hot, homering to left field off Echemendia to make it 5-0, marking his third consecutive game with a long ball.
That was all Conrad needed in the game, as the first-year Grizzlie no-hit the Crushers into the seventh inning, permitting just one baserunner in his first six innings of work- a leadoff walk in the third by Burle Dixon. He would end up throwing 107 pitches in the game, giving up just two singles and one double as well as one walk while striking out four in a dominant performance.
Conrad’s stellar game marks the first time any Gateway pitcher has pitched more than eight innings this season, and the first nine-inning individual shutout for the club since Lukas Veinbergs went the distance on August 29 of last year against Evansville.
The victory for Gateway also increases the Grizzlies’ lead over the Crushers to 3.0 games for second place in the Frontier League’s West Division standings, and gives them the opening salvo in a crucial three-game series. The Grizzlies will now look to make it back-to-back wins over Lake Erie in the middle game of the set on Wednesday, August 14, back at Grizzlies Ballpark in Sauget, with first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.
