THUNDER BAY -- A timely hit might have made the world of difference to the Thunder Bay Border Cats on Wednesday night – and possibly delivered their first home win of 2016.
The struggling Cats left 11 men on base, at least one in every inning but the first, and couldn’t quite complete the comeback in the ninth, falling 3-2 to the visiting La Crosse Loggers at Tbaytel Park.
It’s a matter of just not putting a complete game together, said Thunder Bay centre-fielder Rob Andreoli, who walked twice and scored the Cats second run of the night in the ninth, coming home on Shane Shepard’s infield groundout.
“It would have been nice, but what I think we can take out of this game is we are definitely getting better on offence. We’re getting more hits, we’re putting up runs and we’re getting more guys on base,” said Andreoli, who made a brilliant throw from centre in the ninth to nail Griffin Conine – the son of former major leaguer Jeff Conine – trying to score from second on a Cullen Large single.
“I think as the season comes along, we’re just going to start knocking them in.”
Both starting pitchers found success on the scoreboard, though struggled keeping runners off the basepaths.
Thunder Bay’s Jordan Thompson (L, 0-3) surrendered just two runs in five innings, but gave up six hits and six walks.
La Crosse’s Jonathan Teaney (W, 4-0) lasted just two outs more, allowing one run on six hits and four walks.
It was the Loggers who struck first, loading the bases with one out in the third, Mason McCoy delivering the run on a sacrifice fly, Ramon Padilla sliding under the tag by Johnny Juarez, who had to corral a wide throw from right.
The Cats, in front of 709 fans, got the run back in a wild fourth that saw Shane Shepard thrown out at the plate after Andy Fregia singled, Thunder Bay manager Danny Benedetti vehemently arguing that Loggers catcher Padilla had blocked Shepard’s path to the plate.
Fregia would come home to score from first on a Mitch Bigras double to the right-field corner.
But the Loggers (14-8) got the run back in their next turn at bat, Lorenzo Hampton, Jr. lifting a sacrifice fly to plate Justin Wylie with the go-ahead run.
They added one more in the ninth, Cats reliever Vinny Santarsiero walking leadoff hitter Garret Zech, who came around to score on Conine’s RBI double.
Juarez picked Kevin Collard off first base to end the threat.
Andreoli and Bobby Honeyman drew walks off La Crosse lefty Andrew Perez (S, 4) to open the ninth and both runners advanced 90 feet on an Andy Webber sacrifice bunt.
With one run in and the tying run at third, Joe Gellenbeck grounded to first, the Border Cats falling to woeful 1-20 on the season, 0-11 at home.
“There were a lot of nervous times down there in the dugout as a manger tonight. We got great pitching tonight from our starter,” said La Crosse manager Brian Lewis.
“Our pitching staff has been our strength all year and winning a 3-2 ballgame like this is a big thing for us.”
La Crosse is 1.5 games behind St. Cloud in the race for the Northwoods League North Division title.
