THUNDER BAY – Innings like Saturday night’s fifth frame don’t come along very often.
The Thunder Bay Border Cats scored 12 times – on just two hits – working the count for nine free passes, four hit batters and taking advantage of four wild pitches while batting around two times, and went on to rout the visiting Minnesota Mud Puppies 14-2 in front of 715 fans at Port Arthur Stadium.
It was pretty crazy said Border Cats first baseman Cole Ketzner, who was 1-for-3 at the dish on Saturday, collecting three RBIs.
“Yeah, I’ve never been a part of something like that, but we love it. It was a big inning for us. We can carry some momentum into tomorrow, hopefully. It was a big win,” Ketzner said.
It was a matter of approach.
The opponent, the Northwoods League’s travelling team, used four pitchers in the fifth, control proving to be the biggest issue.
Cole Mahlum, on in relief of starter Will Fazio, didn’t record an out, waking two and hitting two before being lifted for Maddox Foss.
Foss fared slightly better, recording an out, but allowed seven runs on two hits and four walks, and he too was sent to the showers.
Luke Logeais entered and also recorded an out, but walked three and hit two, giving up the final two runs of the inning, the Cats leaping out to a 14-1 lead.
There’s not much to say about an inning like that, said manager J.M. Kelly.
“When you look at the scoreboard and you see we only got four hits. But we only got four hits because we really only got the opportunity to get four or five hits. There were a couple (of chances) where you wish you could have gotten a couple hits,” Kelly said.
“Credit to our guys for having locked-in at bats. There were some that weren’t close. There were also couple there that went 3-2, 3-1, where we took some really good pitches, so it was really good eyes at the plate.”
The lopsided scored did present an opportunity for Kelly to rest his bullpen for Sunday, when the Eau Claire Express roll into town to start a two-game series.
“We’ll take that win. It really allowed us to save the bullpen, which is the biggest thing that’s going to go unnoticed. We got to save (Peter) Fusek and (Sean) Heppner and those guys to be able to use them tomorrow,” Kelly said.
The Cats got to Fazio quickly in the first, thanks to shoddy defence behind the Minnesota hurler.
Zane Skansi reached on an error, took second on another error, then scored on Ketzner’s single to left. Skansi, however, left the game at that point, replaced by Lucas Terilli.
Thunder Bay starter Garfield Johns faced the minimum number of batters through three innings and exited after the fifth, having given up a single run on three hits and three walks, striking out a pair.
Up 2-1, Jacob Miller and Greg LaChance both were plunked to open the fifth. Brayden Fraasman walked to load the based. Two straight wild pitches plated Miller and LaChance. Catcher Trey Fikes singled in another run to make it 5-1, the Ketzner and Logan McIntyre drew bases-loaded walks to up the lead to 7-1. With Logeais on the mound, Frassman was hit and Alex Urlaub grounded out to third to score another. The Mud Puppies finally got out of the nightmare inning when Ollie Yuahus got McIntyre to ground out to third.
Trisant DeLaplante pitched the sixth and seventh, allowing an unearned run after walking the first two batters in his first inning of work.
Dylan Mulcahy took over in the eighth and went the rest of the way, striking out five an only allowing a single baserunner.
Cat tracks: Thunder Bay’s Jackson Cooke is the son of longtime NHLer Matt Cooke, who played 1,046 games for Vancouver, Washington, Pittsburgh and Minnesota. The younger Cooke reached on an eighth-inning error on Saturday.
