Rubberducks even the division series in 10 innings, while the Clippers no-hit Toledo Thursday Night

Cleveland Guardians minor league recap for Friday, September 20, 2024

Columbus Clippers 2, Toledo Mudhens 0

Box Score · Clippers improve to 79-66

When a Clippers no-hitter is the least-talked about thing regarding the Guardians’ organization Thursday, you already know that it was one heck of a day for the whole system. But yes, you heard that right. In the midst of the Guardians clinching the playoffs and the Akron Rubberducks forcing a game 3 against Erie, a combination of Connor Gillispie, Randy Labaut, Anthony Gose and Tanner Burns gave the Toledo Mudhens a goose egg in the hits column.

Connor Gillispie pitched 5 of the 9 innings, K’ing seven and allowing the only two Mudhen baserunners by way of the free pass. Randy Labaut threw two hitless with two K’s, and then Anthony Gose and Tanner Burns rounded things up in the end! Well done to these four pitchers for completing one of the hardest feats in baseball, even in AAA!

As for the offense, the top four in the lineup carried all the weight. Ray Delgado had himself two hits and a walk last night, driving in a run and being driven in as well. J-Rod was the one to drive in Ray on a seeing-eye single to right field in the 6th.

Akron RubberDucks 7, Erie SeaWolves 4

Box Score · RubberDucks even series 1-1

Parker Messick had the bump for the second of this best-of-three series. He went 4.2 innings of two-run baseball, giving up four hits, two walks and fanning four. Zane Morehouse also gave up a run in his 1.1 innings of work following Messick, and Aaron Davenport pitched the remaining three innings of the first nine. He seemed to be doing great, as he hadn’t given up a single hit or walk heading into the 9th, and he had three K’s as well. But he did end up giving up the tying run, but nothing more.

Kody Huff carried the Ducks into the 9th, providing all four runs with a bases-clearing double in the 5th and an RBI single in the 7th.

Unfortunately, that was all only enough to keep Akron up 4-3 heading into the bottom of the 9th. As aforementioned, Aaron Davenport would give up a lead-off triple, only to have the tying run come home off a sac fly. But luck would turn drastically in Akron’s favor in the 10th, when the Ducks would score three runs off of two separate ground balls. The SeaWolves just could not seem to close it out as they committed error after error, which gave Akron the lead and Bradley Hanner the chance to shut the door, prompting a rubber match tonight!