BELTER, BULLPEN LEAD BEACH BUMS TO SWEEP

7/5/2012 - TRAVERSE CITY, MI – The trio of Brooks Belter, Nick Capito and Scott Mueller combined to hold the Normal CornBelters to just six baserunners all night as the Traverse City Beach Bums finished off a sweep of Normal with a 3-1 win in front of 4,018 fans at Wuerfel Park. Nick Capito, seen here in a Pete Walters photo, retired all seven batters he faced against Normal on Thursday.

The Beach Bums tallied the first run of the game in the first inning as after walks to Ryan Still and Chase Burch, Jeff Flagg singled to left to score Still and put TC up 1-0.

The Beach Bums would double their lead in the third as Jose Vargas extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a leadoff triple before being brought home on a Kyle Colligan sacrifice fly. Normal would counter in the sixth as Alvaro Ramirez walked to lead off the inning. After a sacrifice bunt and a groundout moved him to third, Pat Trettel brought Ramirez home with a single to slice the Traverse City advantage to 2-1.

The game would remain that way until the bottom of the eighth when Vargas stepped in to lead off the frame and took the first offering from Rich Mascheri over the leftfield wall for his league leading 16th homer of the season and his ninth in the last nine games putting the Beach Bums ahead 3-1.

That was more than enough for the pitching staff, who turned in another solid performance. Brooks Belter (6-0) started and got the win, allowing one run on four hits, striking out five over six innings. Newly minted All-Star, Nick Capito came on and retired all seven batters he faced, the first four on strikes to hold the game until Scott Mueller entered and finished off the final two batters for his 11th save.

Traverse City now heads out to London for the final series of the first half as they will take on the Rippers in a three game set. Cory Baker (0-0, 3.72) will get the Friday night start for Traverse City against Matt Schimpf (2-3, 3.72) for London. Coverage on Sunny Country 101.9 will begin at 6:40 outside of a scheduled 7:00 p.m. first pitch.

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