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Cats collect season’s first homerun, but fall to Honkers 7-3

The Border Cats recorded their season’s first homerun, but was forced to take their first loss as the Rochester Honkers (3-2) spilt the two-game series with a win Sunday evening.
The Border Cats recorded their season’s first homerun, but was forced to take their first loss as the Rochester Honkers (3-2) spilt the two-game series with a win Sunday evening.

The Border Cats (3-1) came into the game as the undefeated division leaders, but conceded the 7-3 loss to the defending league champions in front of an energetic but small 532-person crowd at Port Arthur Stadium.

Despite the blemish on what has so far been a solid start to the season, the Border Cats’ outfielder Ken Battiston gave fans something to cheer about with an eight-inning solo homerun.

While the Honkers’ defence kept the Cats’ offence in check, Battiston looked comfortable at the plate in every appearance. The left fielder – who came into the game batting .300 with an on-base percentage of .364 – drew a pair of walks and hit a single before his homerun ball bounced off the Port Arthur Stadium scoreboard.

"I feel real comfortable right now, and I’m seeing the ball well," Battiston said after the game. "A lot of (the early success) is from coming in early and getting a lot of work done. And a lot of it has to do with confidence, because if you don’t have confidence at the plate you aren’t going to succeed."

Evan Mistich also found some success at the plate, driving in two runs in the seventh after a Honker’s error put runners at first and second on what could have been a double play to end that inning.

The efforts of Mistich and Battiston wasn’t enough to erase the four-run fifth the Honkers put together, which gave starting pitcher Paul Barton (0-1) his first loss in his first appearance of the season.

Barton delivered four shutout innings before finding himself in trouble in the fifth. The starter hit a batter, allowed two others to draw walks and gave up three hits before catching Honkers’ outfielder Mitch Caster following a misread that had the runner stuck between second and third.

The Border Cats only needed one out to escape trouble, but the fifth inning was a situation that manager Mike Steed said snowballed quickly.

"It was just one of those things where he struggled to get the last out," Steed said. "We didn’t have anyone up in the bullpen. We got somebody up and by that point it was at four runs, which is an acceptable number to come back from, but today they just had our number."

The Border Cats defence struggled once more in the eighth. Three walks and a double allowed Rochester to collect some insurance in the form of another three runs.

"We made some bad pitches, we had some guys put in situations that didn’t come through," Steed said. "I just told the guys ‘do we hate to lose a game? Yes, we do. But are we going to win every game? No.’ If they thought (we could win every game) they would be nuts because that’s just not baseball.

"Our bullpen just kind of let us down today, but that’s baseball and it happens."

The Border Cats will try to regroup to collect their fourth win Monday as they face the St. Cloud River Bats. That game kicks off the final two-game series of the home stand and is scheduled to start at 6:35 p.m. at the Port Arthur Stadium.





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