Bowling Green Hot Rods second baseman Trey Hair throws to first Saturday against Quad Cities at Bowling Green Ballpark.

An early deficit didn’t faze the Bowling Green Hot Rods, who rallied for a 4-3 win over Quad Cities (Iowa) on Saturday at Bowling Green Ballpark.

In a battle of the two Midwest League first-half division winners, Bowling Green spotted the River Bandits a three-run advantage before rallying for four runs in the final four at-bats to take the opener of the three-game series and improve to 13-3 against Western Division opponents.

“We had some bad luck … but it is what it is,” BG manager Craig Albernaz said. “They kept on battling and getting good at-bats.”

“Their starter was great tonight, but we kept chipping away. We found some holes and got some barrels. It was good to come out on top – a great team win.”

The River Bandits appeared to be in control for the first four innings before Bowling Green was able to rally late.

Quad Cities (51-41 overall, 11-11 second half) knocked starter Tobias Myers out after two innings, touching the right-hander up for three runs and seven hits to take a 3-0 lead.

Bowling Green (63-29, 16-7) started its comeback in the fifth with RBI doubles from Vidal Brujan and Taylor Walls to cut the deficit to 3-2.

The Hot Rods were unable to tie it in the sixth, despite Moises Gomez reaching third with no outs, but BG reliever Phoenix Sanders was able to work around a leadoff triple in the seventh to keep the score at 3-2.

Walls tied it with an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh, then the Hot Rods took a 4-3 lead on a sacrifice fly by Eleardo Cabrera one inning later.

Quad Cities got the tying run to second with no outs in the ninth, but Sanders struck out the next three hitters to secure the win.

Sanders earned the victory with three scoreless innings of relief and improved to 5-1 on the season.

Walls, Carl Chester, Gomez and Trey Hair paced the offense with two hits each.

WHAT A RELIEF

Bowling Green’s comeback was aided by stellar work from reliever Andrew Gist, who stemmed the tide after Myers’ short outing.

Making his Hot Rods debut, Gist threw four scoreless frames – allowing one hit with four strikeouts.

“Obviously we wanted to get some length out of him because of having to take Tobias out and he did just that,” Albernaz said. “Not only did he give us length, but they were quick innings. He really kept them at bay to set up Sanders, and Sanders gave us three strong innings.”

FIRST AND FOREMOST

This is only the second series between first-half division winners since the franchise moved to Bowling Green in 2009.

The previous series between first-half division winners came in 2011, with Bowling Green sweeping the Burlington (Iowa) Bees in a three-game series.

UP NEXT

The series continues at 2:05 p.m. Sunday.

Right-hander Austin Franklin (6-4, 3.39) is scheduled to start for the Hot Rods.

Franklin is 2-2 with a 2.66 ERA in four starts since the all-star break and has worked at least five innings in his last five starts. Last time out, he earned the win, allowing one run and five hits in seven innings at Fort Wayne (Ind.) on Monday.

Right-hander Jairo Solis (0-3, 3.00) is scheduled to start for the River Bandits.

Solis has allowed three earned runs over 14 2/3 innings since the all-star break, but only lasted 1 2/3 innings – allowing a run and two hits – in his last start against Burlington on Monday.{&end}