ROSEMONT, Ill. – If you told a Dogs fan last season that Jeff Kinley would be throwing seven innings and earn the win, you would have gotten a puzzled look and told you must be mistaken.

Yet, Kinley did just that tonight. His fourth start of the season proved to be his best, throwing seven innings and allowing two runs in a 6-3 win over the Cleburne RailRoaders.

The southpaw threw six straight innings of shutout baseball and retired eight straight in order at a point. He only got stronger as the game went on to hide the fact this was his longest professional appearance in his career. In three of his four starts, Kinley has allowed two or fewer runs in five innings or more.

The pitching was complimented with a healthy serving of offense, headlined by second baseman Grant Kay. He followed up his two home run game the night before with another long ball to tie the game for Chicago. It was Kay’s 14th home run of the season.

Kinley’s night started off rocky, however. On his first pitch of the game, left fielder Chuck Taylor slapped a hard line drive down the third base line and off of Harrison Smith’s diving glove. A double by first baseman Kacy Clemens moved two runners to scoring position. Taylor came in off of a groundout and Hill Alexander’s single made it a 2-0 game, just the same as Friday.

Just like Friday, the Dogs matched with an early rally of their own. In the bottom of the second inning, Kay launched his third home run in two days and it was another high fly. The second baseman watched as this ball flew off of the scoreboard to match his home run yesterday he marked as “probably the longest ball I’ve ever hit.”

The home run marked the first time Cleburne starter Michael Wong allowed a run in the first two runs. The righty was making his third start for the RailRoaders and was impressive in his first two starts, with a 3.21 ERA in 14 innings. It was for a pitching staff that has had a rough season, with a 5.95 team ERA that ranks in the bottom-three of the league.

Chicago pulled away with the lead in the fifth inning through some tremendous small ball. A pair of singles and a hit-by-pitch set up the opportunity for two runs to come in off of sacrifice flies. Designated hitter Michael Crouse scored the third run of the inning off of a wild pitch from freshly subbed-in Danny Zardon. Wong ended his night with 4.2 innings pitched and allowing five runs in his worst start of the season.

Meanwhile for the Dogs, they watched Kinley put out his best start of the season. The lefty slinger pitched five innings in each of his first three starts, but was able to keep his pitch count low and end up with seven innings pitched in just 89 pitches. Historically working as a reliever, Kinley has been working to stretch out his arm more and more with each start.

Much of the reason behind the low pitch count was that Kinley traded in his usually high strikeout total for efficient pitching. He used his patented pick-off move in the third inning to catch Taylor sleeping and drew a double play in the seventh inning to clear the bases.

The strikeout was still prevalent in big spots. With center fielder Zach Nehrir on third base off of a stolen base, Kinley kept his composure and leveraged his early 0-2 count to strike out Alexander and end the frame.

Cleburne attempted another eighth inning rally to tie the game, but was stopped short after one run was brought in. Chicago eliminated the risk of a comeback when Connor Kopach hit a double down the left field line and Anfernee Grier sprinted from first base all the way home to take the lead back to three. Crouse then singled to bring in Kopach and made the score 7-3. Those runs came off of RailRoaders all-star reliever Hunter Cervenka, who allowed only two runs on the entire season to that point.

That score stayed put in the ninth with Paul Schwendel locking things up for the Dogs. The win pushed Chicago to a 41-20 record and the opportunity for the sweep on Sunday with the towering A.J. Kullman o