Behind Chase Farrell and a Red Hot Offense, Pippins Win Seventh Straight

Chase Farrell turned in another strong start and the Pippins offense continued their torrid stretch, beating the Lefties 9-2 for their seventh straight win.

The Pippins got Farrell some run support early on. After two quick outs in the second, Sam Mitchell kept the inning alive with a single off of Ron Brown. Bryce Wooldridge followed with an RBI triple into the right field corner to give the Pippins a 1-0 lead. In the third, the Pippins pushed two more runs across the plate and Elijah Greene also extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a single. With runners at second and third with two outs, Kyle Dean hit a slow grounder to third base. Tristan Hanoian overthrew to first, allowing Dean to get into second and the runner from second to score. He would be credited with an RBI infield single and reached second on the error.

In the fourth, the Pippins grabbed another run with Wooldridge driving in Mitchell with a single to increase the lead.

Farrell made his second start against the Lefties within the last two weeks, facing them back on July 6 and setting a Pippins record with 12 strikeouts over seven innings of one run ball. Farrell turned in another strong start on Thursday.

Through the first three innings, he allowed just one baserunner while striking out 2. He ran into trouble in the third when the Lefties strung together three straight singles with one out to get on the board. Farrell would limit the damage to just the one run and shut the door on the Lefties. He retired the last seven batters he faced before the Pippins went to the bullpen in the seventh. Farrell gave up just the one run on three hits through six innings with three strikeouts.

"I knew that I would have to do something a little different especially since they'd already seen me for seven innings before and at the All-Star Game," Farrell said. "I was just really trying to hit my spots this time and not really worry too much about getting strikeouts. I tried mixing in a little off-speed and that didn't work out too well but the fastball was pretty dominant today."

In the sixth, the Pippins gave Farrell and the bullpen even more run support by pushing four  runs across the plate. Greene, Cody Jefferis and Dean each checked in with RBI's in the inning, pushing the lead to 8-1.

The bullpen combination of Kaleb Strawn, Drew Hurst and Cole Fossat shut the door in the final three innings. Strawn ran into trouble in the seventh, giving up a run and leaving with the bases loaded and two outs but Hurst would get the Pippins out of the inning.

The Pippins added one more run in the bottom of the eighth on a Tyler Lasch double. Lasch extended his hitting streak to 8 games and with a single in the sixth and the double in the eighth, now has five straight multi-hit games.

In the ninth, Fossat worked around a leadoff single to finish off the Lefties and get the Pippins to their seventh straight win and fourth straight series win.

The Pippins have a chance to sweep the series against the Lefties and extend their winning streak to eight games on Friday. Rhyse Frey will get the start for the Lefties while the Pippins will send Cullen Kafka to the mound. First pitch at 7:05.