Friday night's game between the Lake Erie Crushers and the Traverse City Beach Bums was cancelled after a 90-minute rain delay at Wuerfel Park.
The Crushers will try to extend its winning streak with a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 6:05 p.m. Alberto Rolon and Brent Lysander are expected to start for the Crushers against David Nathanson and David Dinelli.
Even tough they didn't take the field the Crushers (52-35) gained a half game on East Division leader Kalamazoo (54-34), who lost Florence 7-2. River City (49-36) also gained a half game on the Crushers for the final Wild Card spot with a win over Gateway 11-6.

The Crushers 5-3 win Tuesday night over the Washington Wild Things was an exciting one for Crushers fans, but it was far from a well played game.
Both teams combined to leave 24 men on base, walk 17 batters and strike out 14 times.
Something to keep an eye on in the last 11 games is the Crushers' bullpen, which has been a strength of the Crushers all season.
Tuesday night the trio of Cristobal Mata, Ronnie Morales and J.J. Pacella allowed two runs on one hit. The problem was they also walked six batters in five innings of relief. In the last three games, the bullpen has allowed 14 runs.
Brent Lysander returned from an oblique strain to start Tuesday night's game. Although he only lasted four innings, he did not re aggravate the injury which is a great sign for the Crushers.
Washington's Jacob Demsey came into the series near the top of every offensive category in the Frontier League, but Crushers did not have any problems keeping him in check. Demsey went 0-for-4 and struck out three times.
With the win the Crushers, who have won four in a row, reduced their magic number to clinch a playoff berth to nine. They also increased their lead over Windy City, who lost to Gateway, to two and a half games for the final Wild Card spot.

The Crushers completed a weekend beatdown of the Evansville Otters with a 15-4 win on Sunday.
Lake Erie came into the series leading the Frontier League in runs scored and added to that total.
During the three game series the Crushers scored 34 runs on 33 hits.
Lake Erie collected 19 hits on Sunday with all the starters getting had at least one hit. Eight batters scored at least one run and six guys had at least one RBI.
Arden McWilliams had himself a day going 4-for-5, including his 10th home run of the season. He also had five RBIs, which was a season-high.
On the mound, Alberto Rolon pitched six scoreless innings and won his third game of the season.
It was a great sign for Lake Erie because with 12 games left, Rolon will be in rotation for the rest of the way and will likely make two more starts.
The sweep was very important for the Crushers because they keep a 1.5 game lead on River City for the final Wild Card spot.

After being swept by Southern Illinois in the previous series, the Crushers got a huge performance from Cardoza Tucker as they defeated Evansville 8-2.
Tucker he pitched eight innings and improved to 3-0 on the season. With Brent Lysander injured with a strained oblique, the Crushers will need more starts like that from Cardoza as they battle for the final playoff spot.
Before his scheduled start Cardoza said he met with the team to tell them they had to play better.
"We made some bad errors against Southern Illinois and I told them we can't keep making those errors," Cardoza said.
Another highlight of the game came in the top of the sixth inning when Crushers' third baseman Andrew Davis made a spectacular diving play to rob Marcus Rose of a base hit.
All 4,620 fans showed their appreciation by giving Davis a loud ovation.

An interesting news item from the Crushers recent trip to Southern Illinois. Check it out.

Click on this link:
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=6974796

Brent Lysander improved to 9-1 as the Crushers defeated the Southern Illinois Miners 4-1, but had to leave the game after fifth inning because of a strained oblique muscle.
Lysander was a bit wild as he walked four batters in five innings of work, which was uncharacteristic for him as he had only walked 28 batters in 83.1 innings prior to Thursday's start.
The injury might of affected Lysander's control against the Miners, but he didn't use it as an excuse.
If the injury is serious, it could be a big blow to the Crushers starting rotation. Heading into Thursday night's game, Lake Erie held just a 1 1/2 game lead over Southern Illinois for the final playoff spot.
With about three weeks left in the regular season, the Crushers will need to have their No. 2 starter down the stretch.
Andrew Davis had a strange game on Thursday. He went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, but he was thrown out at home twice.
The first time happened in the bottom of the first inning. He was on second base with one out, and Gordie Gronkowski was at the plate. Gronkowski hit a single to left field, but Davis had to wait until the ball passed through the infield before he headed to third.
The hesitation ended up costing Davis as he was thrown out by a mile.
In the eighth inning, Davis was on third base with one out and Tim Binkoski was at the plate. Binkoski hit the ball to first base, and Davis tried to run on contact, but once again he was gunned out at home.
Although he was thrown out at home twice, Davis also had a big double to plate two runs in the eighth inning and give the Crushers some insurance.

Brent Lysander went seven innings against the Midwest Sliders in the Crushers 10-3 win. Lysander gave up six hits, three runs to go with five strike out and no walks.
With the win, Lysander raised his record to 8-1. Lysander, along with Paul Fagan have a combined record of 19-2 on the season, which is by far the best 1-2 punch in the Frontier League.
The win also keeps the Crushers ahead of River City for the final playoff spot. Prior to Saturday night's game the Crushers (40-30) were just a half game ahead of River City (39-30).
Drew Saylor continued to swing a hot bat for the Crushers. The secondbaseman went 3-for-5 on Saturday and scored two runs. Saylor was hitting .421 (8-for-19) in his last four games.

The Crushers won the first game Friday night, 5-2, then lost the second game, also 5-2. The first game was very strange. Since it was the completion of a game that was rained out in early July, the Crushers were the road team even though the game was played at All Pro Freight Stadium. Paul Fagan was strong again, not allowing an earned run in eight innings. Tyler Johnson hit one of the longer home runs at the Freight this season, jacking one 3/4 of the way up the Weed Pro hill on the other side of the left field wall. Why anyone in this league would throw him a first-pitch fastball is beyond me.

In the second game, Dan Horvath from Wellington High School went 4.2 innings to get the win for the Sliders. Great to see a local kid do well. He had tons of family and friends in the stands and rewarded them with a great performance. The Crushers lost a half game in the standings because Kalamazoo won, so they will enter play Saturday four games back in the East.

Morning Journal mini-bat day Saturday for the first 1,000 fans. See you at the Freight.

Monday's game against the Frontier League East Division-leading Kalamazoo Kings was the most important game in the brief history of the Lake Erie Crushers. If they would have lost the Kings not only would have owned the first tiebreaker in the battle for the division, they would have rolled out of Avon with a 4.5 game lead in the division race.

Tyler Johnson, signed a couple of weeks ago, turned the tide. The Crushers were cruising along, leading 2-0 behind five innings of no-hit pitching by starter Brent Lysander (son of former MLB pitcher and Senior League star Rick Lysander). Then the proverbial wheels fell off the wagon as Kalamazoo erupted for five runs in the top of the sixth.

Josh Short hit a deep home run well over the wall in left center to give the Kings a 3-2 lead. Jett Ruiz, Kyle Higgins and Bryan Marquez followed with back to back to back doubles to extend the lead to 5-2 and take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the 2,823 fans in attendance at All Pro Freight Stadium.

It didn't take very long for the fans to get on their feet again. Andrew Davis led off the bottom of the sixth with a double down the rightfield line. Gordie Gronkowski followed with a single before Eddie Tisdale, Sunday's hero, walked to load the bases.

Johnson, playing in just his 10th game for the Crushers, delivered. Brownell threw a first-pitch fastball that Johnson was sitting on. He smoked it between Short, the leftfielder, and centerfielder Brandon Anderson. It rolled to the base of the wall as all three runs scored.

While Johnson changed the momentum, Wayne Bond finished things off. Arden McWilliams bunted Johnson to third. Bond got the bunt sign on the first pitch of his at-bat and, with Johnson sprinting down the line, had to throw his bat at the ball to foul it off because, if he did not get a piece of it, Johnson would have been out at the plate by 30 feet.

Crushers manager John Massarelli put the squeeze bunt into the Lake Erie game plan earlier in the day. After Bond hammered the next pitch he saw halfway up the light pole in left field for a two-run blast, Massarelli might be thinking of taking the squeeze bunt back out of the game plan.

The Lake Erie bullpen, with Josh Faiola, Ronnie Morales and Jacinto Gonell, handled things from there. Amos Ramos took Faiola deep in the eighth, but that was all the Kings would get the rest of the way.

The Crushers took two of three from Kalamazoo for the second time in two weeks. They own the tiebreaker over the Kings. With 30 games left on the schedule they are 2.5 games back. Things are getting very interesting at All Pro Freight Stadium.