Courtesy Peoria Chiefs:

After a 10-15 start to the second half of the season, the Peoria Chiefs playoffs hopes looked bleak. It’s time to look again as the Chiefs continued one of the franchise’s best regular season runs, clinching a post-season berth with a 2-1 win over the Quad Cities River Bandits Thursday night at O’Brien Field. The magic number to clinch the Midwest League Western Division crown is down to three for Peoria, who will taste postseason baseball for the first time since 2006.
The Chiefs took a 1-0 lead in the first. David Macias singled to lead off the inning and advanced to third on Ryan Flaherty’s single to right. Rebel Ridling came up and delivered his 91st RBI of the season on a sacrifice fly to right field to plate Macias and give Peoria an early one-run edge.
Peoria added a run in the bottom of the fifth with some wildness from Bandits starter Eric Fornutaro. Macias beat out a bunt single before Flaherty drew a four-pitch walk. Ridling struck out looking and Quad Cities intentionally walked Kyler Burke to load the bases. D.J. LeMahieu hit a grounder to second and Jason Stidham forced Burke at second. However, Domnit Bolivar’s return throw to first was not in time to get LeMahieu as Macias scored for a 2-0 Chiefs lead.
Aaron Shafer blanked the Bandits through six innings on five hits and one walk. The Chiefs’ opening day starter only had to work out of one threat as Quad Cities put runners on first and second with two down in the third. Shafer got Xavier Scruggs to bounce out and end the inning.
Josh Whitlock, who returned from Boise on Wednesday, relieved Shafer to start the seventh with the Chiefs up 2-0. Bolivar greeted Whitlock with a double to right-center and he advanced to third on a wild pitch. After a lineout to center, Bolivar came home on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Jack Cawley to cut the Chiefs’ lead in half.
Quad Cities threatened in the eighth as Jermaine Curtis walked with one out and Rich Racobaldo reached on an infield single to third. Reliever Kevin Kreier rebounded to strike out Scruggs and Freddy Parejo swinging to strand two runners.
Shafer (10-8) threw six shutout innings while striking out two and walking one. He allowed four hits and did not allow a runner past second base. Whitlock allowed one run on one hit in his lone inning of work. Kreier picked up his third save of the season, firing two scoreless innings and giving up one hit while walking one and striking out three.