Cats bats go silent

The Border Cats wanted to get Corey Pappel an inning or so of work before his scheduled Friday start.

But with the Mississauga right-hander’s parents among the season-high 1,059 in the crowd at Port Arthur Stadium, the move backfired – although it wasn’t entirely his fault that the visiting Brainerd Lakes Area Lunkers chose the sixth inning to break open the game, scoring three times en route to a 4-1 win.

Pappel, who took over from starter Zach Smith (0-2) to start the sixth, just set the stage.

The 21-year-old loaded the bases with just one out on a hit batsman, single and a walk, before giving way to the usually reliable Matt White, who carried with him a miniscule 0.82 ERA.

Unfortunately for the Cats (11-15), White endured a rare shaky outing, starting things off with a two-out wild pitch that scored Matt Hillsinger from third to put the Lunkers (11-16) up 2-0.

The next batter, Vince Bruno, who hit a crucial grand slam to beat the Cats on Tuesday, was up to his old tricks again, doubling to deep centre-field which plated Russ Hopkins and Levi Ferguson, the No. 9 hitter in the Brainerd lineup.

The Cats managed to get one of them back in the bottom half of the sixth, but squandered a chance to score more when Ryan Court’s scorching line drive was snared by Hopkins, who stepped on the bag and easily doubled off Tanner Nivins on a miscalculated hit-and-run.

 “We had a lefty-lefty matchup and Matt White got burned on that,” said Thunder Bay manager Mike Steed, defending his decision to lift Pappel in favour of the southpaw White.

P.K. Kitamura scored the lone Thunder Bay run, reaching on a two-base error with one out in the sixth, and coming home on Nivins’s line-drive single up the middle, one of just three hits they had in the game.

The Cats were stymied for much of the first half of the contest by the pitching of Washington, D.C. native Ian Horkley, who completely shut down his opponent, save for a pair of hits surrendered in the fourth.

Horkley (1-1) retired 11 of the first 12 hitters he faced and was in command all night long. The only obstacle in his way was a strict 60-pitch pitch count, that ensured he faced an early exit no matter what happened on the field.

“I guess I just got ahead of hitters. And it’s a lot easier to pitch when you’re ahead in the count,” Horkley said, “then when they know you’re going to throw a fastball.”

Steed said his players had no idea what to expect from Horkley, a cagey right-hander from North Carolina’s Davidson College.

That never makes it easy to hit, he added.

“We just read his line, didn’t really have any report on him. But he threw a helluva game. He had a live fastball that got on our hitters and he just kept (throwing) slider, slider, slider and we couldn’t adjust to it,” Steed said.

In the seventh,Thunder Bay’s Evan Mistich reached on a second error by Brainerd SS Stephen Wickens, but was just as quickly disposed of on a miscommunication between him and the third-base coach. Steed said Mistich was told to wait for a breaking ball to steal, but instead went on a first-pitch fastball and was easily tagged out sliding into second.

Kyle Teague entered in the eighth and retired the Cats in order, while Ray Black earned his first save, striking out two and walking one in the ninth.

On a positive note, Border Cats reliever Jorge Rodriguez managed to get through two innings without surrendering a run and appeared to have regained the control he couldn’t find in his earlier appearances this season.

Rodriguez gave up two hits and a walk, but struck out three to keep the Cats in contention.

The two teams will play a matinee game on Thursday, a 1:05 p.m. start.

Claw marks: Border Cats pitcher and native son Eric Brown will be lost to the team for a couple of weeks in late July and early August when he plays for Canada at the World University Games in Japan. Brown, who will take to the mound for the Cats on Canada Day, is 2-0 this season with a team-leading 0.39 ERA. Also named to the team was Burlington, Ont.’s Luis Castillo, who pitched for the Cats last summer ... Mistich, who had a 22-game streak of reaching base safely snapped on Tuesday – although he did reach on an error – started a new streak, reaching twice on a single and a walk ... The Cats third straight loss means any combination of four Thunder Bay losses and St. Cloud wins will eliminate them from first half contention in the Northwoods League’s North Division. St. Cloud beat Mankato 7-2 on Wednesday ... Brainerd manager Ryan Levendoski was a coach with the Cats in 2007 ... Starter Smith gave up six hits and two walks over five innings.