Elijah Gill and two relievers combined on a seven-hit shutout, Jaxon Hallmark had three hits and the Tri-City ValleyCats blanked the Evansville Otters 8-0 on Wednesday afternoon at Bosse Field in Evansville, Ind.
The ValleyCats (12-11) took the second game of the three-game series after dropping Tuesday’s opener. They play Evansville (14-9) again at 7:35 p.m. Thursday.
Gill went six innings and allowed six hits and five walks, but he pitched out of trouble. He retired Jeffrey Baez on a foulout to the catcher with the bases loaded to end the third and struck out George Callil and Noah Myers with the bases loaded to finish the sixth.
Gill struck out four. He gave way to reliever Greg Veliz, who pitched two perfect innings and struck out his last five batters. Brendan Bell pitched a scoreless ninth.
Evansville left 11 men on base.
It was Tri-City’s third shutout victory this season. The ValleyCats pitched only one shutout last year.
After the start of the game was delayed more than an hour by rain, Trey Hair gave the ValleyCats a 1-0 lead with an RBI groundout in the first inning. Hair returned after serving a two-game suspension for his role in a bench-clearing altercation on Saturday against Empire State.
In the fourth inning, Hallmark singled to left to drive in a run, followed by Hair’s bases-loaded walk to make it 3-0.
The ValleyCats tacked on four more runs in the fifth inning on Pavin Parks’ sacrifice fly to right, Hallmark’s RBI single to right and Cito Culver’s two-run single.
Tri-City’s Carson McCusker capped the scoring with a solo homer to left-center in the eighth inning.
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