Big win

Garrett Hughes pitched well in his first two Thunder Bay Border Cats starts, but couldn’t find the win column, despite a sparkling 1.69 ERA.

On Sunday he got some help.

Hughes, a hulking 6-foot-8 lefty, no-hit the visiting Alexandria Beetles into the fourth inning, gave up just one single before hitting the showers in the sixth and evened his record at 1-1, helping the slumping Cats put an end to their three-game losing streak with a 7-2 triumph.

“It really felt good. I came out just going right after guys and my team obviously provided the runs I needed. They were taking a lot of pitches so I just threw a lot of strikes and a bunch of guys made a lot of plays for me, so it was a good win,” said Hughes, whose only blemish came in the fourth, a wild pitch that allowed Tanner Vavra to jog home from third, cutting the Cats lead to 3-1 at the time.

Hughes, a sophomore at Stanford University and native of Carlsbad, Calif., said he’s been experimenting with his pitching in practice and Sunday was simply about putting his new mechanics into use.

“It worked out well. And it’s always a plus when the offence is cranking well,” said Hughes, lifted when his pitch count reached the caution zone.

Danny Bethea, who caught Hughes in high school before teaming together on the Border Cats, said from his perspective the beefy southpaw had everything working on Sunday.

“It’s fun catching him and today he did what he’s always been able to do, and that’s locate the fastball. He’s got a plus-plus changeup and he’s got a good curveball to go at them. And he’s actually developed more of a slider and it seemed to get a lot of people off balance and get people out, which is a good out pitch for him,” said Bethea, who authored a 2-for-3 day at the plate that included an RBI double in the first that opened the scoring and an RBI single in the seventh that put the Cats up 6-1.
Border Cats manager Andy Judkins liked what he saw from Hughes.

“He was good. He was good early and got some strikeouts, which is always tough when you’ve got a big K guy,” Judkins said.

“But his pitch count got up there. We’d like to see him go deeper into the ballgame, but he did the job and turned it over to the bullpen and they did their job and we got a win out of it.”

It was, in fact, the Cats first win in four tries to start the second half.

Getting that monkey off their backs was key too, he added.

“Let’s just hope we can keep it rolling and get another start from Kacy (Kemmer) and get the offence rolling and keep doing the same thing,” Judkins said.

Getting the bat on the ball in key situations was the big difference over Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Beetles, a game that saw the Cats strike out a dozen times.

Bethea did it with two outs in the first and Scott Donley came through in the second, his grounder to the right side of the infield enough to plate Phillip Lyons from third.

Patrick Gallagher tripled and scored on a wild pitch from Alexandria pitcher Scott Sanderson (0-2) in the fourth.

Sanderson was replaced by Nick Berhel in the seventh after a Brett Kay single put runners on the corners. Donley greeted Berhel with a run-scoring double and Kay came home on an Adam Landecker sacrifice fly.

Chad Richie, Woody Nesbit and Jordan McCoy each tossed an inning of relief for the Cats, who played before a season-low 525 fans at Port Arthur Stadium. McCoy gave up back-to-back double in the ninth that scored the Beetles only other run.

Alexandria and Thunder Bay wrap up their three-game set on Monday night. Game time is 7:05 p.m.