Elks Pitchers Cut Up Pickles to Earn First Win of Second Half

Eli Takalo’s solid middle-inning relief made the difference in the Elks’ Friday night road win over the Portland Pickles.

Portland, OR. - The Bend Elks railed the Portland Pickles Friday with ten strikeouts and allowed the Pickles to muster just four hits en route to a statement-making 5-3 win to open the second half of the season.

In what appeared to be a shaky start of three walks and one hit batter from Kaden Hogan to open the game, it turned out to be the opposite in the end. Beyond that poor first inning of pitching, Hogan would toss three scoreless and hitless innings. Eli Takalo followed with a hiccup on a ball left over the plate that Jesse Pierce took yard, but, like Hogan, recovered and retired the next six batters he faced, including three on strikeouts. The Elk's closing back-end hurler Simon Lemke faced adversity by giving up two walks and an RBI hit. But just like the others, Lemke kept his eye on the task at hand and finished the job with back-to-back strikeouts to close out the game.

Bend's lineup scraped across just enough runs to secure the victory taking advantage of several extra opportunities given away by the Pickles. The Elks caught its big break in the third when the Pickles committed two errors that allowed Jake Hoskins and Hunter Komine to score on Kody Watanabe's single turned "error triple." With Watanabe at third as opposed to first, Ruben Cedillo drove him home on a sac line drive to left. Bend tacked on its other two runs in the fifth thanks to back-to-back leadoff hits by Cedillo and Luca Dipaolo coincided with three straight walks, one of which included an RBI for Justin Tsukada.

Portland walked nine batters, with half of those being accounted for by Ethan Thomas, who walked four times in the game. All of the Elks' four hits came from Bend's top four hitters in the order (Komine, Watanabe, Cedillo, and Dipaolo). The rest of the lineup went a combined 0 for 15.

Takalo (2-0) earned his second win going 3.0 innings with four K's and one run surrendered. Simon Lemke got his second save of the summer, going two innings of one-run ball with four punchouts and two walks.

Bend (16-16, 13-15) looks to capture its first series win of the second half Saturday night against Portland (21-13, 16-9) at 7:05 p.m. at Walker Stadium.