Catcher Ronaldo Hernandez throws to first during their game against Lansing on Tuesday, June 5, 2018, at Bowling Green Ballpark. (Austin Anthony/photo@bgdailynews.com)

The battle for the lead in the Midwest League’s Eastern Division came down to the wire with Lansing (Mich.) using a late push to take the opener of a three-game series from the Bowling Green Hot Rods with a 6-4 win Tuesday at Bowling Green Ballpark.

Bowling Green (36-20) erased a four-run deficit before the Lugnuts scored a run in each of the last two innings to pull even in the standings.

“Our guys never gave in,” BG manager Craig Albernaz said. “We were down four and the next thing you know we tied the game up. We potentially had the go-ahead run, but it is what it is with that play. I can’t say enough about our guys getting big hits and having good at-bats. (Lansing) is a good team. They are like us. It was two very similar teams going at it and it was a great game.”

Lansing (37-21) scored in three of the first four innings to build the cushion before the Hot Rods mounted a late comeback.

Chavez Young led off the game with a triple and scored on a ground out in the first. Cullen Large extended the lead to 3-0 with a two-run homer in the third and Young added a sacrifice fly to make the score 4-0 in the fourth.

Bowling Green erased the deficit with a huge seventh inning. Carl Chester’s RBI double got the Hot Rods on the board. Vidal Brujan followed with a two-run single, but was thrown out trying to advance to second for the second out of the inning.

Maximo Castillo walked Taylor Walls and Zach Rutherford, who moved to second and third on a passed ball. Moises Gomez struck out on a wild pitch third strike with Walls easily scoring the tying run. Rutherford also tried to score, and appeared to slide in under the tag, but was called out to end the inning – much to the dismay of Albernaz, who was ejected arguing the play.

“Zach Rutherford was busting his butt around third base on that play,” Albernaz said. “He’s a great baseball player, a savvy runner, so we told him to go ahead and take it.

“The ball did beat him. It was kind of a messed-up slide, but I thought he got in there and the umpire thought differently. We had a disagreement about it and he told me to go home, so that’s it.”

With the score still tied at 4, the Lugnuts were able to regain the momentum – taking the lead on an RBI single by Noberto Obeso in the eighth and adding an RBI double from Young in the ninth.

Tyler Day took the loss in relief, allowing two runs over two innings to fall to 0-2 on the season.

Bowling Green finished with nine hits, two each from Gomez and Chris Betts.

FOR OPENERS

With Tuesday’s loss, the Hot Rods dropped to 13-7 in series openers this season. Bowling Green is 3-2-1 in the previous six series it lost the opening game, with all three series wins coming at home.

INJURY UPDATE

Brujan exited the game in the seventh inning when he jammed his thumb on the slide into second attempting to stretch a single into a double, although the prognosis from Albernaz was good following the game.

“He’ll be fine,” Albernaz said. “It was just precautionary. It is June and you probably don’t want to push it too much. You want to make sure it isn’t broken or anything like that, but it’s fine.”

UP NEXT

The series continues at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday.

Left-hander Josh Fleming (2-0, 1.17) is scheduled to start for the Hot Rods. Fleming has allowed three runs total in four starts with the Hot Rods spanning 23 innings. Two of those runs came against Lansing on May 18 when Fleming went six innings and got a no-decision – allowing nine hits and walking three.

Right-hander Colton Law (1-2, 6.91) is scheduled to start for the Lugnuts. Law is winless in his last four appearances and is 0-2 with a 9.78 ERA in five starts this season. He faced Bowling Green on May 20, allowing four hits over four scoreless innings of relief.{&end}