Rico Noel collects his first hit as a Tin Cap and drives in 4 runs, Jake Blackwood and Luis Domoromo continue their over .300 hitting and Zach Cates turns in a great pitching performance to pace the Tin Caps to a rain shortened 3-2 record for the week. Starter Keyvius Sampson continues his lights-out brilliance as well, pushing his record to 6-1 with a 2.20 ERA.

The rain shortened series against the Dayton Dragons will be finished with their next face off. Fort Wayne then had 3 off days in a row with only one of them scheduled. The rest must have done them some good as they then took 2 of 3 from Lake County and the first game of a series against West Michigan. The one loss versus Lake County was a one hit gem thrown by the starter and three relievers with first baseman Tommy Medica breaking it up in the fifth inning with a single.

Closer Adam Dominick notched his sixth save of the season and improved his ERA to 3.38 and a 2-1 record over 18.1 IP and 2 BB with 23 SO. The Padre organization appears to like their closers tall as the 3 hurlers doing the majority of closing for A-AA are all 6-4 or taller and 220- 240 lbs. The success of Brad Brach (now pitching for San Antonio) over the last 2 seasons seems to be an inspiration for the organization.

By finishing the week 3-2 the Tin Caps have improved to 17-24 on the season and fought their way out of last place, 8 games back of Great Lakes.

Starter Zach Cates, although not the winner of his game, threw 5 innings of 2 hit ball and no earned runs to bring his ERA down some to 4.17. With the exception of Adys Portillo the starting pitching is leveling out for Fort Wayne with Jackson, Sampson and relievers Mull and Hardy below 3.0 with their ERA. Portillo, now 0-6 with a 10.72 ERA, appears to be overmatched at this point and is battling with his control.