THUNDER BAY – Austin Breazeale was pretty close to perfect on Sunday night.
Given an extra day of rest, the Thunder Bay Border Cats hurler retired the first 19 Waterloo Bucks batters he faced and left with one out in the ninth, holding the opposition to one run on three hits as his team erupted for seven runs in an error-filled seventh inning to defeat the Bucks 8-1.
It was the third straight win for Thunder Bay (14-19) and prevented Waterloo (18-16) from clinching the Great Plains East Division first-half crown for at least another night.
It was easily the best performance this season by Breazeale, who hadn’t started since June 14 and made only one relief appearance in between.
“It was my first perfect game going into deep innings like that,” said the Arizona native, a freshman at Gateway Community College. “It was pretty exciting. I was mixing it up, mixing in a fastball and a changeup that was doing the work.”
Breazeale improved to 2-1, giving up one run on three hits while striking out seven and could do no wrong through six innings, said battery-mate Alexander Hernandez, who helped his partner with a 3-for-4, two RBI night, doubling home a pair as the 10th batter to come to the plate in the seventh against beleaguered Waterloo reliever Brett Lockwood.
Lockwood had taken over from starter Jack Parkinson to start the inning.
“He just made everything easy. He was able to get everything over for a strike, everything for a strikeout pitch. His change-up was moving really, really good today and I think we built off that,” said Hernandez, the post-game fireworks show lighting up the sky over Port Arthur Stadium behind him.
“It was a blast. It was just 1-2-3, 1-2-3. We would come in, go hit, go hit. It was non-stop and he just kept dominating.”
Manager Eric Vasquez said he had a premonition in warm-ups something good was going to happen for his young right-hander.
It was a breeze, the first-year skipper said.
“He even came in after eight innings and said, ‘I only feel like I threw 50 pitches,’” Vasquez said. “His whole body, everything was really well. We also gave him an extra day off to help him regroup from his last start and you could see, everything looked good.”
The Cats took the lead in the first, Jake Engel tripling to right-centre to score Nick Seamons, his first of two RBI on the night.
But try as they might, Parkinson shut the door the rest of the way.
Thunder Bay loaded the bases in the third with one out, but came up empty. An inning later Jordan Larson reached on an error by Waterloo 3B Alex Ronnenbaum and moved to third on Hernandez’s single, but Nathan Soriano struck out and Seamons grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end that threat.
Bennett Hostetler broke up Breazeale’s perfect-game bid with one out in the seventh, doubling down the right-field line, but was stranded at third.
The Cats broke the game open in the bottom of the inning, thanks in part by a trio of Hostetler errors at short, one by Ronnenbaum, his second of the night, and yet another by 2B Matt Campos, an Andrew Shebloski single subsequently scoring two.
Just one of the seven runs allowed by Lockwood was earned.
Three of Waterloo’s five hits came in the ninth, two by reliever Aaron Kern, who took over the reins with one out and two on.
The Cats and Bucks (18-16) play the third game of their four-game set on Monday afternoon. First pitch is 1:35 p.m.
