Wingnuts sweep Rail Cats, win 5th straight

{GARY, Ind.} — The Wichita Wingnuts won their fifth game in a row, and finished a three-game sweep of the Gary SouthShore RailCats with a 10-2 victory at U.S. Steel Yard on Sunday afternoon.
Derek Blacksher tied Nick Singleton for the most wins in franchise history, while Wichita used a seven-run fifth inning to break the game open.
Already leading 3-1 in the fifth, Jake Kahaulelio led off with a bunt single up the third base line and stole second base.  With Kahaulelio on second and one out, Mitch Einertson singled on a sharp groundball through the right side to give Wichita a 4-1 lead.  The single was the first of six consecutive hits by the Wingnuts, the latter five of which were for extra bases.
Ziegler followed Einertson with a double off the top of the left field wall, and both came in to score when Steve Carrillo doubled down the left field line.  David Peralta and Salomon Manriquez connected on long RBI doubles to extend the Wingnuts' lead to 8-1.  Mike Conroy tripled off the right field fence to score Manriquez with the Wingnuts' ninth run.  The triple was Conroy's 23rd all-time in the American Association, tying the league record.  Ryan Khoury capped off the inning with an RBI groundout to third that scored Conroy.
Blacksher allowed one earned run on five hits in six strong innings.   Blacksher walked two, struck out one, and is now 18-5 all-time in a Wingnuts' uniform over 32 regular season starts.
The Wingnuts pushed across two runs in the top of the first to take an early lead.  Khoury drew a four-pitch walk to start the game, and stole second base two batters later with John Rodriguez at the plate.  Rodriguez moved Khoury to third on a groundball to first base.  After Einertson walked, C.J. Ziegler lined a single to right field to score Khoury and give Wichita a 1-0 lead.  Steve Carrillo reached first on an error by third baseman Rico Washington to load the bases.  David Peralta was then hit by a pitch to force home Einertson and make it 2-0.
Adam Klein walked to open the bottom of the first and eventually scored on Michael Coles' groundout to short to cut the Wingnuts' lead in half.
Einertson launched a long home run in the top of the third for Wichita's third run.
Gary SouthShore used an error in the bottom of the seventh to score its final run.
Kyle Wilson started and took the loss for the RailCats.  Wilson allowed five runs, four earned, in four and one-third innings.  Wilson struck out one, walked two, and allowed five hits.
Nick Walters worked a scoreless ninth to finish off the game for the Wingnuts. The five-game winning streak is the first for the Wingnuts since August 14th-17th of 2010.
The Wingnuts head to Fargo, ND for a three-game series against the RedHawks beginning Monday night at 6:00 p.m.  Ryan Hinson takes the mound against former Wichita State Shocker Aaron Shafer.