Barracudas profit from Challengers' miscues in 6-2 win

The Zurich Barracudas avenged last week's 9-5 loss by upending the Challengers 6-2 in wednesday night's contest at the Heerenschürli Ballpark.

The Barracudas' Beni Montag tossed seven solid innings, earning his first win of the season, Strahil Georgiev had a game-high three hits, and the Challengers' defense committed five costly errors that led to five unearned runs.

Tobias Siegrist was the victim of all those errors, getting credited with his first loss of the season after pitching 6 1-3 innings in which he gave up six runs on seven hits, two walks and a hit-by-pitch, while also striking out four.

After three scoreless innings, the Barracudas struck first on Georgiev's RBI-single. Siegrist could have escaped further damage as he got Marc Schnider to pop up to right field with two outs and two runners in scoring position, but right fielder Oliver Bernet misplayed the ball and dropped it for two unearned runs and a 3-0 Barracudas lead.

The Challengers came right back on a leadoff double by Siegrist, followed by Rob Sedin's RBI-single, and another RBI-single by Bryan Shemley three batters later to cut the deficit to 3-2.

The Challengers then wasted scoring opportunities in both the fifth and sixth innings, and the Barracudas made them pay by pushing across three more in the top of the seventh.

A throwing error by catcher Sedin to third base, and a fielding error by first baseman Shemley on Marc Oboussier's grounder extended the Barracudas' lead to 6-2.

That also made Siegrist's day an Andrea Girasole came in to stop the damage. He did so, and also went on to pitch 1 2-3 inings of shutout ball, but his offense stalled against reliever Nderim Coma, as well.

Game notes
Siegrist got his 450th hit in the NLA (2nd alltime) when he doubled in the fourth inning. ...Saentis Zeller snapped his 10-game hitting streak by going hitless in five at-bats.