While the Los Angeles Angels took care of business on Friday against the Cleveland Guardians in a 5-4 win, their Single-A affiliate, the Inland Empire 66ers had a weird start to their matchup.
The 66ers took on the Modesto Nuts, the Single-A team of the Seattle Mariners and before first pitch, the Nuts led by manager Zach Vincej, submitted the wrong lineup card that forgot to list their starting pitcher and included all position players.
That required the team to intentionally walk three hitters to start the game before they could make a pitching change and bring in the arm who was supposed to throw.
Sounds like Modesto submitted the wrong lineup card, and their starter wasn’t on it, so they had to intentionally walk the first three batters (to adhere to the three batter minimum rule) and make a pitching change.
— Angels MiLB (@AngelsMiLB) May 13, 2023
The 66ers were given three free base runners because of the mistake, and the Nuts needed to do a bit of defensive shuffling to fix the initial error. Five defensive swaps and two substitutions were done before his club took the field for the second frame.
The 66ers took full advantage of the error, posting six runs in the first inning and going on to win Friday’s game by a 13-10 final score.
The loss was charged to Brandon Schaeffer, who walked three batters while giving up three runs, no hits, and recording no outs. In total, the 66ers walked seven times in the game.
Inland Empire is currently 12-19, which places them third in the California Southern League.
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