Loons pitchers shut down Cougars

Jaime Ortiz’ solo home run and a second straight night of great pitching was the key as the Loons defeated the Kane County Cougars Wednesday night by a score of 3-1.

The Loons struck first in the third when Pedro Baez laced a leadoff double down the left field line. Later in the inning, Scott Van Slyke recorded an RBI groundout, scoring Baez and making it 1-0 in favor of the Loons.

Kane County would answer a half-inning later when Todd Johnson’s RBI single tied the game at one.

In the bottom of the fifth, Jaime Ortiz launched a solo homerun to right off Cougars starter Jamie Richmond, his second of the season to give the Loons a 2-1 lead.

Van Slyke helped the Loons tack on an insurance run with an RBI single in the eighth making it 3-1.

Loons’ starter Steven Johnson (2-0) pitched five innings allowing a single run, striking out five and picking up his second victory of the season. Jon Dutton pitched two scoreless innings of relief before Matt Sartor pitched two innings without allowing a run and picked up his first save of 2008.

Jamie Richmond started for Kane County and pitched six innings allowing two runs in picking up the loss, dropping his record to 1-1.

The Loons improve to 11-8 while the Cougars fall to 15-4. The Great Lakes Loons are now three games over .500 for the first time in franchise history.

The Loons travel to Davenport, Iowa to take on the newly-named Quad Cities River Bandits for a three-game series beginning Friday night. Game time is 8:00 p.m. from Modern Woodman Park. Daigoro Rondon is scheduled to start for Great Lakes.