from staff reports
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---- — O'FALLON, Mo. — Traverse City saw its five-game road win streak end Sunday with a 14-4 loss to the River City Rascals.
The setback dropped the Beach Bums 2 games behind Oakland in the wild card chase in the Frontier League's East Division. Traverse City trails division-leading Windy City by 2½ games. Oakland beat Gateway 14-12 Sunday while Windy City blanked Florence 2-0.
The Beach Bums (46-38) embark on a regular season-ending 12-game homestand Tuesday.
On Sunday, River City struck for four runs in the first and five in the third to break the game open early. The four runs in the first came on a Steven Holdren grand slam home run. Kevin Reese (9-8) was tagged with the loss. The Rascals hit five home runs in the contest.
The Beach Bums scored once in the third on an RBI single by Michael Diaz and three in the eighth on a three-run homer by C.J. Ziegler. It was his 13th roundtripper of the season.
Tony Marsala (9-8) went six innings, allowing one run on eight hits, to earn the win.
Traverse City finished with 10 hits, three by J.T. Hall. Diaz and Matt Brown added two apiece.
The Beach Bums were coming off a doubleheader sweep of River City on Saturday night. Traverse City won the completion of Friday's suspended game, 11-6, and then took the regularly scheduled game 4-0 behind the pitching of Michael Moore and Scott Dunn. Moore (7-5) pitched five-plus innings before running into trouble. Dunn relieved in the sixth with two on and no outs and pitched out of the jam. He picked up his fifth save in the game.
Traverse City had jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first on Brad Miller's two-run single. Back-to-back doubles by Diaz and Chase Burch accounted for another run in the third. The Beach Bums added a solo run in the fifth.
