Skip to content

Cats blanked by St. Cloud

Rox score three runs in the third on a pair of bases loaded walks and a sacrifice fly, go on to a 6-0 win over Thunder Bay.

THUNDER BAY – It’s the little things that are keeping the Thunder Bay Border Cats out of the win column.

A day after snapping a four-game losing streak, the Cats were unable to make it two in a row, surrendering three runs on a pair of walks and a sacrifice fly in the third inning, en route to a 6-0 whitewashing at the hands of St. Cloud starter Zach Lauzon and a pair of Rox relievers.

After surviving a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the opening inning unscathed, Thunder Bay starter Erik Key found himself in trouble in both the second and third innings.

He escaped the second after allowing a single run on a wild pitch, but struggled in the third, his final inning of the afternoon, putting the first three batters on before walking Connor Aube as the Rox increased their lead to 2-0.

After Ben Carew popped up for the first out of the frame, Chad Bible also drew a bases loaded walk. The final run of the inning came in on a Noah Hill sac fly, plating Ryan Weisenberg.

“When we don’t compete in the games, it’s us doing it to ourselves. We’ll commit an error, then we’ll walk a guy and walk another guy and it starts into a snowball effect where a single hit will start clearing the bases,” said Thunder Bay’s second-year manager Mitch Feller, whose team fell to 6-20, already eliminated from contention for the first-half Northwoods League North Division crown.

“You look at the scoreboard and yeah, it’s only one hit, but they’ve got three or four runs on the board. We’ve been kind of our own worst enemies at this game.”

Thunder Bay never really mounted much of a threat against Lauzon, who put runners on first and second with two outs in the fifth before striking out Billy Cook, the Cats best hitter, to end the inning.

He retired the side in order in the sixth, allowing four hits and walking none.

Erik Martinez took over in the sevenths and promptly loaded the bases after setting aside the inning’s first two batters.

Once again it was Cook with a chance to get the Cats on the board and once again he was unable to deliver, flying out to centre.

The fix is not that tough, said newcomer Cam Pearcey, playing just his second game with the Border Cats.

“We’ve just got to eliminate mental errors. Physical errors are going to happen, but we’ve just got to stay focused the whole game,” said Pearcey, a Florida native who collected a double and a single in three trips to the plate.

“The game’s about three hours, so we’ve just got to bring it every day.”

The Rox upped their lead to five in the seventh off reliever Luke Malone, who took over from fellow bullpen artist John Sakowski. Weisenberg smashed a grounder to Nick Conti at second, who made a brilliant dive to snag the ball, only to throw wide to 1B Brady Gulakowski.

Landon Stephns took third on the play, then raced home when Gulakowski’s back was turned with the game’s fifth run.

They added one more in the ninth on a Weisenberg single, his third hit of the afternoon.

Sakowski didn’t allow a hit in three innings of relief of Key, who walked four more batters an dnow has issued 20 free passes in 23 innings.

The game was played before 736 fans at Port Arthur Stadium.

The Border Cats host LaCrosse on Monday the opening game of a four-game set that concludes with a day-night doubleheader on Wednesday.



Leith Dunick

About the Author: Leith Dunick

A proud Nova Scotian who has called Thunder Bay home since 2002, Leith is Dougall Media's director of news, but still likes to tell your stories too. Wants his Expos back and to see Neil Young at least one more time. Twitter: @LeithDunick
Read more



Comments
push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks