KOKOMO — The wins stack for the Traverse City Pit Spitters at the perfect time.
The Pit Spitters leave Kokomo on Wednesday with their fourth straight win after a dominating 9-2 road win over the Kokomo Jackrabbits (18-43) to maintain a stronghold of first place in the second half of the season for the Great Lakes East Division.
The Pit Spitters have struggled to maintain a winning streak for most of the second half of the season. Still, after several key wins this past week, Traverse City remains one game ahead of first place in the Great Lakes East Division with a 17-10 second half of the season record, but the Pit Spitters (34-28) tied for second place with the Kalamazoo Growlers (33-27).
Traverse City would need to maintain their winning ways for several weeks and end the second half of the season with a first-place finish or second-place finish overall would help Traverse City clinch a spot in the postseason for the sixth consecutive season.
The Pit Spitters got on the board first in the top of the third inning on an Ethan Guerra RBI single to right field to go ahead 1-0, but the Jackrabbits responded in the bottom of the third.
Traverse City jumped ahead in the top of the fourth on an unearned run from Brett Rozman, followed by an RBI double from Cater Hain to go ahead 3-1.
Reilly Shafer (1-2, 4.29 ERA) led things for Traverse City and went six innings only allowing one run while striking out six and walking three with 76 pitches thrown. James Geshel came to relieve Shafer, who went one inning innings and allowed one run. Jaxson Huffman (0-1, 7.71 ERA) closed out the ninth, striking out one.
The Pit Spitters tacked on a run in the top of the sixth inning on an RBI double from Michael Tchavdarov to go ahead 4-1.
Traverse City loaded the bases with two outs but couldn’t muster any more runs.
After loading the bases again in the top of the seventh, Hain got walked and Ethan Belk sent a three-run RBI triple to deep right field to extend the lead to 8-1. The Jackrabbits added one run in the bottom of the eighth to make it 8-2.
Tchavdarov put the cherry on top in the top ninth inning with an RBI single to extend the lead to 9-2.
The Pit Spitters return to Turtle Creek Stadium on Thursday for a two-game series against the Battle Creek Battle Jacks with the first pitch slated for 7:05 p.m.