By Nathan Baliva
PEORIA – The Peoria Chiefs allowed 10 unanswered runs after taking an early lead and fell to the Beloit Snappers 10-1 Saturday night. St. Louis Cardinals infielder Jhonny Peralta went 0-for-2 in his second rehab game as the Chiefs fell to 21-20 on the season.
Peralta continued his rehab starting at third base and batting second for the Chiefs. He flied out to deep center field in the first and popped out to the second baseman in shallow right field in the third inning. Peralta’s only play in the field was a ground ball in the fourth inning in which he started a 5-4-3 double play.
The Chiefs offense got on the board in the first inning when Thomas Spitz greeted Snappers starting pitcher Even Manarino with a lead-off double. Spitz moved to third on Peralta’s flyout and with two outs Eli Alvarez scored Spitz with his league leading 14th double of the season and the Chiefs took a 1-0 lead.
The Snappers answered in the top of the third against Chiefs starter Brennan Leitao. With two outs, Jean Carlo Rodriguez doubled to left and Leitao’s former college teammate Justin Higley tied the game 1-1 with a double to left.
Beloit knocked Leitao out and took the lead in the sixth. Brett Siddall and Chris Irriart led off with singles and with one out, Jose Chavez was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Harley Holt came in to relieve Leitao and gave up a double to Trace Loehr as the Snappers took a 3-1 lead.
Beloit put the game away with big eighth and ninth innings. They loaded the bases in the top of the eighth against new Chiefs pitcher Brady Bowen who replaced Holt to begin the inning. With two outs Rodriguez cleared the bases with a double down the left field line Beloit to give the Snappers a 6-1 lead. Beloit sent nine batters to the plate in the ninth inning against Bowen. Higley tripled and scored on a single by Edwin Diaz. Trent Gilbert doubled home Diaz and two runners scored on back-to-back errors by the Chiefs as Beloit took a 10-1 lead.
Leitao (3-3) took the loss as he allowed three runs on seven hits over 5 1/3 innings with one walk and four strikeouts. Holt tossed 1 2/3 innings only giving up one hit, while striking out one. Bowen went two innings giving up seven runs, five earned, on seven hits while striking out one and walking one.
