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BURLINGTON ---  Luis DeJesus allowed three hits and struckout six over seven scoreless innings as the Mahoning Valley Scrappers handed the Vermont Lake Monsters their fifth shutout loss of the season with a 2-0 victory Before 3,379 fans on Friday night at historic Centennial Field.

 

DeJesus retired the first 13 Lake Monster batters of the night before a Bruce Maxwell groundball single down the leftfield line with one out in the fourth inning. The only other two hits that he allowed over his seven innings were a two-out single to Addison Russell in the sixth and one-out John Wooten double in the seventh. DeJesus, who threw 64 of 76 pitches for strikes, improved to 4-0 and lowered his ERA to 1.41 in the victory.

 

Vermont starter Nolan Sanburn made his professional debut on Friday, allowing two hits with two strikeouts in two scoreless innings. A second-round selection for the Oakland Athletics in the 2012 draft out of the University of Arkansas, Sanburn worked around leadoff singles in the first and second innings including an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play to end the second.

 

The Scrappers got on the board in the third as Vermont's J.C. Menna walked leadoff batter Eric Gonzalez, who scored later in the inning from third on a one-out Jairo Kelly RBI single to rightfield. Mahoning Valley added the only other run of the game in the seventh as Menna walked Richard Stock to open the inning and he scored on a two-out RBI single by Robel Garcia off reliever Stuart Pudenz. 

 

Vermont threatened in the eighth with back-to-back one-out singles from Chad Lewis and Austin Booker followed by a two-out walk to Brett Vertigan to load the bases, but Scrapper reliever Jack Wagoner came on to strikeout Chris Bostick to end the inning. Wagoner then tossed a scoreless ninth for his first save of the season.

 

Menna (0-5) allowed the two runs on two hits with three walks and five strikeouts over 4 1/3 innings to take the loss. Vermont pitchers were able to strikeout 12 Scrapper in the game, including three caught looking strikeouts from Omar Duran in the top of the ninth. The loss drops the Lake Monsters, who lost two of three in the series to Mahoning Valley, to 21-24 overall on the season

 

The homestand continues on Saturday at 6:05 pm with the first of a three-game series against the Batavia Muckdogs at Centennial. Saturday is City Sports Night at the ballpark followed by Champ's Birthday on Sunday and Derek Norris bobblehead giveaway on Monday.