Early outburst leads to 10-run win for Birds

Chester Bird's first six batters reached base safely, leading to a five-run first inning, which was followed by a four-run second inning, and The Birds cruised to a 13-3, five-inning win over St. Louis Park in a South Hennepin League game at Dakota Park.

Dan Labosky walked on four pitches to start the game and Keaton Studsrud followed with a single through the left side of the infield. Consecutive walks to Jimmy Heck, Joe Melles and Gabe MacDonald plated a pair of runs and finished Railcats starting pitcher Ryan Froom.

Chester Bird pitcher Marcus Barone hit a hard groundball to third base to greet relief pitcher Zach Lewis and Jake Lukasavage bobbled the ball before making a belated throw to home. Two outs later, Robby Sutherland singled between Lukasavage and the third base line to bring home two more runs.

Heck and Melles singled and doubled with one out in the second inning with Heck scoring on a wild pitch and Melles coming home on MacDonald's base hit. Barone then reached on a fielding error in front of Sam Lynch's RBI single and a walk to Chris Racchini brought on Jacolbi Courington-Meier to pitch.

He was greeted by an RBI single by Sutherland before working out of the inning by getting a double play groundball.

St. Louis Park had scored an unearned run in the first inning and tacked on two more unearned runs in the third to cut the lead to 9-3 but The Birds added two more runs in both the fourth and fifth innings.

Racchini walked with one out in the fourth and moved to second on a wild pitch. Dan Labosky then beat out an infield single and stole second base. Studsrud walked to load the bases and Heck singled home Racchini and Labosky.

In the fifth, Cole Hoyt came on to pitch and was greeted by back-to-back singles by MacDonald and Barone. A walk to Sam Lynch loaded the bases and, one out later, Sutherland collected his third hit of the game to drive home MacDonald with Barone scoring the game's final run when Labosky grounded into a fielder's choice, beating out the relay throw from second to first to allow Barone to cross the plate.

In his first pitching appearance of the summer, Barone allowed just four hits with a walk and a strikeout, needing 66 pitches to work the five-inning contest.

Sutherland's three hits and four RBI led The Birds while Heck and MacDonald both collected two hits and two RBI.

Chester Bird returns to action tomorrow for another SHL game, facing Wayzata in a 6 p.m. game at BSM Field.