Crushers fall to Down East for fifth straight loss

AVON – The Crushers kicked off their penultimate series of the regular season Tuesday with their fifth straight loss, 7-3, to Down East at Crushers Stadium. After being swept by Shaumburg over the weekend, the Crushers needed to get off to a fast start Tuesday, and they did just that, scoring two in the bottom of the third on an RBI double from Sebastian Alexander and an RBI single from Kenen Irizarry. The positivity was short-lived, as Down East took the lead back immediately with a three-run fourth. The Crushers tied the game in the bottom of the inning. The Bird Dawgs all but put the game away in the fifth, jumping ahead again with a sac fly, then loading the bases on a pair of two-out walks. Despite the fact that Crushers' starter Darrien Ragins had just walked back-to-back hitters and was already at 95 pitches for the game, manager Jared Lemieux elected to leave him in to face Ali LaPread. LaPread smoked Ragins' 1-2 pitch to left center, scoring all three runners and putting the Bird Dawgs in firm command of the game. "(LaPread) has struggles with breaking balls, and Darrien's got a pretty good breaking ball," Lemieux said. "Unfortunately, he hit the fastball." After LaPread's three-run double, Leonardo Rodriguez came into the game and struck out Yeniel Laboy to end the inning, but the damage had been done. "We just didn't execute some pitches, and they ended up taking advantage of it," Lemieux said. "They're a good club over there. They've been playing really good baseball lately, and we've got to be ready to compete." The Crushers came to the plate five more times, but were held hitless, with their only baserunners coming on two walks by Dario Gomez and Davie Morgan. Despite clinching a playoff spot Saturday, the Crushers are now mired in a five-game losing streak that has Lemieux searching for answers. "We've got to figure out what our identity is as a group," he said. "We've kind of gotten away from what was working before. We need to get back to that. If we can do that, where we're piggybacking off each other's energy and bringing maximum effort every day, that's gonna help us." The Crushers have just five games remaining before the playoffs and will have to figure things out quickly if they are going to have the type of memorable playoff run that their play earlier this season clearly showed was possible.