Davenport, Iowa – In just his second-career start, Royals’ 2025 fifth-round pick Aiden Jimenez earned his first professional win Thursday, as Quad Cities eclipsed .500 for the first time in 2026 with a 4-3 victory over the Lansing Lugnuts at Modern Woodmen Park.
Though charged as an earned run, the only blemish on Jimenez’s line came in the second inning when an error on River Bandits’ second baseman Tyriq Kemp allowed Lansing to take the game’s first lead.
It would not last long however, as Derlin Figueroa tied the game with an RBI-double in the bottom of the frame before a Lansing error, a throwing miscue by Carlos Franco, allowed “Figgy” to score and put Quad Cities up 2-1.
After the Bandits took the lead, Jimenez did not blink retired nine-straight over his final three frames, including two of his night’s three strikeouts.
Lansing starter Sammuel Dutton kept Quad Cities’ lead at one working into the fifth, needed help from the bullpen. Jack Mahoney appeared out of the Lugnuts’ bullpen but was greeted by Austin Charles the left-hander with a seven-pitch at-bat, capped off by a two-run double.
Working with a 4-1 lead, Ryan Ure took over for Jimenez and pitched a scoreless sixth inning. But after allowing a bases-loaded walk to Franco in the seventh, was pulled in favor of Nick Conte, who got Quad Cities out of the jam with a 4-2 lead by getting Rodney Green Jr. to ground into an inning-ending double play.
Jose Dicochea kept it a two-run contest by keeping the Bandits out of the run column in the bottom of the seventh and eighth, striking out three over 2.0 innings.
Conte stranded a pair of two-out base runners aboard in the top of the eighth, but saw Lansing rally in the ninth as the Nuts plated a run on a Bobby Boser sacrifice fly.
The right-hander ultimately triumphed though, stranding the tying run at third and the go-ahead run at first by getting Casey Yamauchi to ground out to the catcher Blake Mitchell. The effort cemented an eight-out save, his first as a River Bandit, and his team’s 4-3 victory.
Jimenez (1-0) lowered his earned run average to 2.45 with the win, allowing just two hits and no walks over his performance. Dutton (0-3) was saddled with the loss, surrendering four runs, three earned, over 4.2 innings with a game-high four strikeouts.
Ure earned his season’s first hold working 1.1 innings of relief out of the Bandits’ bullpen.
Quad Cities returns to Modern Woodmen Park for game four of the six game set tomorrow night and sends reigning Midwest League Pitcher of the Week David Shields (1-2, 4.91) to the mound opposite Lansing’s Zane Taylor (1-1, 1.26). First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.