BoS: NLCS Games 3-5

The Urbana Locomotives, the team with the best record of the National League, finds themselves down 2-0. Now the series moves out west to Portland, can the Locomotives regain steam and take this series back to Urbana?

They'll have to do it without Nick Markakis who slammed into a wall in Game 2, and has cost him 20 days. Adrian Beltre will play in Game 3, as he missed the remainder of Game 2, colliding into Carlos Ruiz.

Game 3 - Hiroki Kuroda - URB (21-11, 3.13 ERA) vs. Chris Tillman - PORT (7-5, 3.96 ERA).

Tyler Colvin smacks a two-run HR to right to get things rolling for the Locomotives in the 2nd, Garrett Jones follows that up with a homer of this own -- a quick 3-0 start for Urbana, as it has quieted this Portland crowd early. Carlos Ruiz added a RBI single in the 3rd inning, while Garrett Jones struck again for his second HR of the game; 5-0 Urbana.

Colvin doing his best to keep Urbana in the series.

Portland scores a couple runs in the 7th, to bring the Brewers within striking distance, an RBI single by Freddie Freeman. For Freeman, it was his 5th hit of the series, with 6 RBI's. A.J. Ellis would drive in Freeman a couple batters later.

Wilton Lopez would pitch 2.1 innings of relief to close out the game for the save, recording 3 K's.

Carlos Ruiz would get injured by getting hit by a pitch from Matt Albers late in this one, the report after the game is that he will be out for 8 days. This is the second time in the last few weeks that Ruiz got injured, talk about bad timing.

Urbana 5, Portland 2

Game 4 - Jeremy Hellickson - URB (8-14, 3.38 ERA) vs. Jonathan Niese - PORT (16-8, 2.61 ERA)

Freeman: Derailing Urbana's pitching.

The Locomotives couldn't figure out how to hit Jonathan Niese, and how to pitch to Freddie Freeman who has played party spoiler. Niese would hold Urbana to only five hits, while Freeman added two more HR's (making it 5 HR's for the series). Freeman hit HR's in the 3rd & 5th innings off of Hellickson, Freeman has had ice in his veins this series.

Jason Kipnis added 3 RBI on two hits, one of the hits, a two-run HR in the 8th off of Urbana reliever Javier Lopez.

The Urbana Locomotives now find themselves down 3-1 to the Portland Microbrewers.

Portland 6, Urbana 0

Game 5 - 

Garrett Jones hits a big three-run HR in the 4th off of Portland starter Cliff Lee. The Locomotives would thrive in this one with the long ball, hitting 4 HR's, 3 of them off of Lee. Adrian Beltre, Tyler Colvin (added another HR this series), Justin Maxwell hit a HR, and is batted .364 this series, after only batting .220. For Jones, he hit his 3rd HR of the series.

Portland's two runs both came off homers by David Ortiz and Todd Frazier in a losing cause, as Urbana trims down the Microbrewers series lead to, 3-2 -- bringing the series back to Urbana.

David Price looked like the Cy Young favorite we were used to seeing, with a strong 7-inning performance that allowed only 4 hits and two runs, with 8 strike outs.

Urbana 6, Portland 2