On Sunday afternoon left-hander Michael Boyle had his best game of the short 2016 season and arguably the best of his professional career.

Boyle was selected by the Dodgers in the 13th round of the 2015 First Year Player Draft out of Radford University in the state of Virginia. He made his minor league debut with the Arizona League Dodgers on June 23rd pitching a scoreless inning against the AZL Padres.

Michael Boyle

After two appearances with the Dodgers Boyle was advanced to the Ogden Raptors of the rookie level Pioneer League. He made nine appearances with the Raptors, six of them as starts, and posted a 1.33 ERA along with 27 strikeouts in 27 innings. On August 14th Boyle was promoted to the Great Lakes Loons of the Midwest League. Over four starts with the Loons he posted an ERA of 3.00 and a WHIP of 1.17.

Boyle made his first appearance with the Loons in 2016 pitching the season opener in Midland after two days of rain delays. The Loons beat the Lansing Lugnuts 5-4 although Boyle did not get the win.

On a clear Sunday afternoon he made his fourth start of the season. Over seven innings, the longest start of his career, Boyle gave up five hits and one run while striking out two and walking one. He threw 91 pitches, 64 of them as strikes. While he didn’t strike out many hitters he threw first pitch strikes and induced a steady stream of ground balls and pop ups.

Loon announcer Chris Vosters pointed out that Boyle was the first Loons pitcher to pitch at least seven innings since July 5th of 2015 when knuckleballer Matt Shelton pitched eight innings against the West Michigan Whitecaps. With his performance against the Hot Rods on Sunday he lowered his ERA on the season from 3.38 to 2.66.

Heading into the bottom of the sixth inning the Loons and Lugnuts were tied at one. The Loons lone run had come on a home run by hot hitting catcher Garrett Kennedy in the bottom of the third inning.

Reliever Taylor Hawkins came on in the sixth inning to pick up Hod Rods starter Michael Velasquez. That’s when the game got more interesting for Loons fans. The 22-year old Hawkins is a knuckle ball pitcher. Hot Rods catcher Brett Sullivan was battling the knuckle ball and perhaps should have heeded the indomitable Bob Uecker’s advice on how to catch a knuckle ball. That is, “…wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.”

Before the inning ended the Loons had scored four runs on three singles, two walks, a sacrifice fly along with two wild pitches and an errant pick off attempt at first base. The big blow was a three run homer lined over the right field fence by first baseman Matt Jones, his third of the season.

Third baseman Edwin Rios in his second game with Loons after an extended spring training had three hits, his first at the Class A level, and also contributed a stolen base.

Right-hander Gavin Pittore pitched the final two innings for the Loons giving up one run on two hits and securing a 5-2 wins for the Loons and Michael Boyle’s first win of the season. Pittore has now made four relief appearances on the season all with at least two innings pitched.

Boyle picked up his first win of the season on Sunday afternoon.
(Photo courtesy of radfordathletics.com)

The Loons have Monday off and return to the field on Tuesday with a six game road trip beginning in Appleton against the Wisconsin Rattlers.

All Loons games can be heard on ESPN 100.9 FM with Chris Vosters and Brad Tunney and home games on MiLB.TV. Tune in for pre-game interviews and post game wraps.