U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have no need to visit AT&T Field this week.

Mudcats are thriving.

Carolina earned its third consecutive victory Thursday night, as pitchers Daniel Barone, Jarrett Santos, Jeff Gogal and Chris Mobley combined to blank Chattanooga 2-0. The Mudcats won 7-0 Wednesday night and have shut out the Lookouts for 21 consecutive innings.

“It’s frustrating, especially when I know we’ve got the sticks in the lineup to put up a lot of runs,” Lookouts outfielder Shaun Cumberland said. “All you can do is look forward to the next day. It can’t get much worse than this.”

Maybe it can.

Chattanooga is scheduled to face Chris Volstad tonight when the two teams resume their six-game set at 7:15. Volstad is rated by Baseball America as the No. 1 prospect in the Florida Marlins organization and is 3-2 with a 2.92 earned run average through 12 starts.

“We’re running into a doggone good staff, and these guys are hot right now,” Lookouts hitting coach Jamie Dismuke said. “We’ve faced some big-league pitching these last couple of days, so we’ll just keep going at it. I’m not worried about us. They’re making pitches, and we can’t catch a break right now.”

The Lookouts have been outscored 17-2 the past three nights and are one shutout loss away from matching their total in the first half. Their 0-3 record to start the second half marks the first time they have been three games below .500 all season.

Though Dismuke was quick to give Carolina credit, Lookouts players are shouldering the blame.

“We’re not stringing together good ABs right now,” third baseman Eric Eymann said. “Personally and teamwise, we’re better than that. We’re making them look better, so we’ve got to battle harder and come out with a better approach.”

Carolina got the offense it would need in the fourth inning when John Raynor singled to center, advanced to second on Chris Coghlan’s groundout and scored on Josh Willingham’s single to left-center. Gaby Sanchez followed with a double into the left-field corner to put runners on second and third, and a Cameron Maybin groundout scored Willingham to make it 2-0.

The Mudcats defense recorded three double plays.

Lookouts starting pitcher Travis Wood was aided by double plays in the first and second innings and wound up striking out five batters in five innings and allowing no walks. Though he took the loss, Wood picked up a quality effort in his fifth Double-A start and lowered his ERA from 7.50 to 6.65.

“He threw more strikes and worked faster,” pitching coach Chris Bosio said. “We haven’t been able to get a lot of runs for our young guys, and we’re running up against a club that’s got good pitching and played another good game.”

James Avery (3-4, 5.56) is scheduled to start tonight for the Lookouts.

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