JANESVILLE — When a team is stuck on a seven-game losing streak, it will take a win however it can get it.
Janesville’s American Legion baseball team found offense difficult to come by Wednesday night, but Post 205 was able to push across an unearned run while Blake Bowditch and Christian Hobon combined to shut out Milwaukee for a 1-0 win at Veterans Field at Riverside Park.
“They kept the ball down,” Janesville assistant coach Eric Busse said in explaining Bowditch and Hobon’s success. “Even when they hit fly balls, the ball was low, so they had to lift it on their own and it wasn’t going very far.”
Bowditch threw the first three innings for Janesville and started with a three-up, three-down frame with a little help on a sliding pickup and assist by shortstop Charlie Kober on the game’s first pitch.
The best scoring chance came and went for the Pipemen in the second inning after Brad Corcoran’s leadoff single. Bowditch retired the next two hitters before yielding a base on balls to Vinny Clementi, but he got Zac Millmann to ground out to Landon Keller and end the inning.
The second was the only inning in which Milwaukee had more than one man on base simultaneously. The Pipemen had two hits in the third off Bowditch, but the lefty picked off the first batter to reach to ensure the bases were clear when the second hit happened.
Post 205 grabbed the lead in the next half inning after Bowditch’s leadoff single. He hit a soft liner that flew just out of the reach of Corcoran on the mound, and the second baseman couldn’t make a running play on the ball that landed in the infield grass behind the pitcher’s mound.
Mathias Treinen, Janesville’s next hitter, sent one on the ground to the second baseman that looked like a potential double play opportunity, but the fielder couldn’t handle it and both runners were safe on the error.
A wild pitch moved them to second and third, and Brett Appel smashed a chopper toward first base. Jake Rechlitz snagged it on a dive in front of the bag, but his throw home to cut off the run wasn’t in time and Appel and Treinen were safe at first and third.
“We have to manufacture runs any which way we can because we really haven’t hit the ball the way that we should’ve in the last few games,” Busse said. “Manufacturing them through bunts and stolen bases and wild pitches — you just have to do it.”
Appel stole second base to put runners back on second and third with nobody out, but Corcoran got two of his 12 strikeouts to get out of the jam with no further damage done.
Corcoran pitched all six innings for his team, striking out the side twice and striking out two in an inning three times. He allowed just two hits and one walk.
“His (two-seam) fastball was always going away,” Busse said of Corcoran. “He had a really good changeup, too, that got these guys off their toes a little bit. ... We were watching a lot of strikes down the middle, and we can’t do that.”
In the end, though, Janesville didn’t need to do anymore damage. Hobon took the ball on the mound after his team went ahead, and while he didn’t record a strikeout, he didn’t walk anybody, either.
Just three Pipemen reached against the Janesville reliever on one error charged to Hobon, a fielder’s choice that retired the batter who reached on the error and a one-out single in the sixth.
Hobon’s error was the only one Janesville committed on the night, helping them keep Milwaukee out of the run column on the scoreboard.
Keller had a busy night in the field, converting four ground balls into outs and catching a pop fly for another putout.
With its seven-game skid behind it, Janesville heads up to a highly competitive tournament in Plover on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“There are going to be some tough teams up there,” Busse said. “The Plover tournament sometimes overtakes the state tournament just because of the caliber of teams that are there.”
Post 205’s Friday games will be at noon against Chippewa Falls and then at 2:30 p.m. against Sheboygan. Games against Manitowoc and tournament host Plover are set for 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday night, respectively.
JANESVILLE 1, MILWAUKEE 0
Milwaukee 000 000 0 — 0 4 1
Janesville 001 000 X — 1 2 1
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-k) — M: Corcoran L, 6-2-1-0-1-12. J: Bowditch W, 3-3-0-0-1-2; Hobon 4-1-0-0-0-0.
Most Popular
Comments / 0