MLN - THE RAW FEED - www.mlntherawfeed.com – Burlington - Left-hander Rick Zagone turned in his finest outing as an IronBird in Wednesday night’s 3-1 win at Vermont.

On Thursday night, righty Pat Egan did the same.

Egan fanned seven batters while allowing just three hits—all singles—and a walk over seven scoreless frames to lead Aberdeen to a 2-1 victory. The win was the second in as many starts for Egan (3-5), who has now given up just one run in his last 13 innings of work.

The win put the IronBirds (29-27) two games over .500 for the first time since the team was 2-0 on June 18. Aberdeen, which took two of three from Vermont, has now won each of its past three series and seven of its last nine games.

The IronBirds came out of the gates rolling, as the first three batters of the game recorded a hit. Kraig Binick singled to lead off the game and advanced to third on a double by the next batter, Caleb Joseph. Robbie Widlansky added a single of his own to score Binick and put the visitors up 1-0. Tyler Kolodny was hit by a pitch two batters later to load the bases with one out, but the IronBirds couldn’t extend their lead, stranding all three runners.

Newcomer Arthur Bonevacia, who was promoted to Aberdeen from Rookie-level Bluefield on Thursday, reached on an error by Vermont shortstop Dani Arias to start the second inning. Lake Monsters starter Brad Peacock issued a walk to Calvin Lester to put runners at first and second with no outs. Binick moved both runners up with a sacrifice bunt before Joseph lifted a sacrifice fly to left field to plate Bonevacia and put the IronBirds up 2-0.

The two runs proved to be all Egan would need, as the right-hander was dealing. Egan sat down the Lake Monsters (23-31) in order in the second, fourth and fifth innings and allowed just five baserunners all night, none of whom reached second base.

Vermont’s pitching staff was almost as stingy, allowing just six hits on the night and only two from the fourth inning on.

Right-hander Ryan O’Shea came on in relief of Egan to begin the eighth inning and got a groundout before whiffing the next two batters to take the 2-0 lead into the final frame.

Vermont provided a scare in the bottom of the ninth after O’Shea walked the leadoff batter, Jake Dugger. O’Shea struck out two hitters in a row but allowed Dugger to reach third on a pair of wild pitches. Derek Norris broke up the shutout with a two-out double to center that scored Dugger. Michael Guerrero couldn’t save the Lake Monsters, though, as he went down swinging to end the ballgame.

O’Shea struck out a career-high five batters over the final two innings to record his third save.

Peacock (3-5) suffered the loss after allowing two runs (one earned) and five hits in 4.2 innings.

Jake Smolinski went 2-for-4 in the losing effort and was the only player for either team to record multiple hits.

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