Behind Chicago Cubs All-Star Ted Lilly and Cubs first-round draft pick Brett Jackson, the Peoria Chiefs blasted the Burlington Bees 11-1 Wednesday night at O’Brien Field. Lilly (1-0) gave the 6,118 fans in attendance what they came for, firing five shutout innings on 58 pitches
and 45 strikes while allowing just two hits and striking out two in a winning effort.
Lilly summed up his outing on his final pitch of the night, a knee-buckling curveball that froze Burlington’s Yeldrys Molina to end the top of the fifth. Jackson hit his third and fourth Chiefs home runs
Wednesday night in just his 13th game with Peoria.

The Chiefs supported their starter with a run in the bottom of the first. With two outs and nobody on base, Rebel Ridling clubbed his 14th homer of the season, which is the second highest total on the active roster.
Peoria added one more in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Kyler Burke walked and moved to third on D.J. LeMahieu’s scorching single through the right side. Jovan Rosa came up and delivered a sacrifice fly to just shy of the warning track in right to score Burke and give the
Chiefs a 2-0 lead
.
After Lilly cruised through his fifth and final inning, the Chiefs broke the game wide open against Bees starter Sam Runion. Nelson Perez led off with a walk and Michael Brenly singled to left. With one down, Jackson put the Chiefs on top 5-0 with an opposite-field three-run homer off
Runion. Flaherty reached second on a walk and wild pitch and then moved to third on a soft grounder by Ridling. With runners on the corners another wild pitch made it 6-0 and a single by
Burke put the Chiefs up seven and knock Runion from the game.

Austin Bibens-Dirkx relieved Lilly for the sixth and kept the Bees off the board. Peoria added to their lead with two in the sixth and one in the seventh against reliever Justin Garcia. Brenly started the sixth inning rally with a single and two batters later Jackson singled off the left-field
wall. Flaherty doubled home both runs with his 19th two-bagger of the season for a 9-0 advantage.

In the seventh the Chiefs went up 10-0 when Brenly drove home Rosa with a sac fly to right. Jackson put the exclamation point on the ballgame in the bottom of the eighth when ripped his second homer of the night, a tailing shot down the left field line to make it 11-0.
Burlington got their only run on a Nick Francis RBI single in the top of the ninth off Bibens-Dirkx.

Lilly gave up just two hits through his five innings of work with both hits coming in the top half of the first. Adrian Ortiz singled on a line-drive to left, and David Wood hit a grounder towards second baseman Junior Lake that hit the runner Ortiz who was streaking to second.
Ortiz was called out, but due to Major League Baseball rules, Wood was credited with a hit, the last hit off Lilly on the night. The southpaw allowed just two other baserunners the rest of the
way, as Shawn Griffin reached on an error in the second and Fernando Garcia walked in the third. Lilly retired the last seven batters he faced. Bibens-Dirkx earned a four-inning save, his
first of the season, allowing one run on three hits while punching out five.