PEORIA, IL – The West Michigan Whitecaps were unable to hold down a red-hot offense and fell for the second straight day, dropping a Wednesday matinee to the Peoria Chiefs by a score of 7-2 at Dozer Park.
The Chiefs win their second straight contest and have scored 23 runs in the two games of this series after being shutout last Sunday in a loss at South Bend.
For the second straight day, the Whitecaps opened the scoring when Clayton Campbell, who had reached base seven times in his past two games, plated infielder Woody Hadeen with an RBI-Single to give West Michigan a 1-0 lead. In the second, the Chiefs carried their hot hitting from Tuesday night into the Wednesday matinee, as catcher Sammy Hernandez launched his fifth home run of the season to tie the game at one. In the third, first baseman Jack Gurevitch, who launched three homers on Tuesday, blasted his fourth longball of the series with a two-run shot to give the Chiefs a 3-1 lead. After the Chiefs plated a run in the fourth, the Whitecaps collected a second run-scoring single by Campbell to slice the ‘Caps deficit to 4-2. In the sixth, the Chiefs added two more in an inning highlighted by a solo homer by Jalin Flores to extend the lead to 6-2. Flores’ homer also broke the Chiefs franchise record for home runs in a season, now sitting at 123 after Wednesday’s contest. Trailing 7-2 in the ninth, Hadeen left the contest with an apparent leg injury after a one-out single as the ‘Caps fell for the second straight day in Peoria.
The Whitecaps drop to 14-12 in the second half and 38-52 on the season, while the Chiefs improve to 12-14 in the latter portion of ‘26 and 43-48 overall. Peoria reliever Dylan Driessen (1-0) tossed 1.1 scoreless frames while striking out two in earning his first win with the Chiefs since being called up from Single-A Palm Beach last week. Ben Jacobs (2-2) gave up four runs in 3.2 frames in suffering his second loss of the year. Campbell led the Whitecaps offense in a losing cause by going 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI and is hitting .300 (15-50) with a home run and 11 runs batted in during the month of July.
UP NEXT
The Whitecaps play the third game of this six-game series against the Peoria Chiefs on Thursday night, with first pitch scheduled for 7:35pm. Pitchers Lucas Elissalt and Yhoiker Fajardo get the starts for the Whitecaps and Chiefs. Broadcast coverage with Dan Hasty begins on the Whitecaps Baseball Network at 7:20pm on ‘The Ticket West Michigan’ and 1340 WJRW-AM in Grand Rapids or listen to all the action on whitecapsbaseball.com.