Kay delivers for Cats

Cory Kay was a one-man wrecking crew, just when the Thunder Bay Border Cats needed a little pick-me-up at the plate.

The rookie catcher, who spent Tuesday’s game in a hitter’s-only role in the designated hitter spot, lifted a lazy ball over the fence in left in the sixth off reliever Keaton Siomkin to break a scoreless tie and give the Cats a 3-0 lead.

Then, two innings later, after the visiting St. Cloud Rox fought back to tie the game with three unearned runs off Thunder Bay starter Blake Fonfara, Kay came through again  in the clutch, feathering a single over second that plated Scott Donley with the winning run.

The 4-3 win was Thunder Bay’s second straight at Port Arthur Stadium and a coming out for Kay, the younger brother of Cats shortstop Brett Kay, after a woeful 7-for-35 start at the dish.

The homer, his first, hugged the foul line and just kept going and going.

“I knew I hit it good, but I hit it real high. With the wind blowing out, like it has been the past two days, it got caught in the wind stream and climbed right out. It was nice.”

It came at the perfect time.

The Cats (6-8) had threatened early on, putting runners in scoring position in four of the first five innings. But they just couldn’t get that one extra hit they needed to push the offence over the top.The same was true for the Rox, who got Nick Rau to third, only to watch rightfielder Payden Crawley Lamb gun him down at the plate on Andy Henkemeyer's attempt at a sacrifice fly.

“It’s good to actually get runs on the board. Then we put up a crooked number and I’m sure it gave Blake our pitcher the confidence to go back out there and pitch with the lead,” Kay said.

Ironically it was older brother Brett, the 2011 top fielding shortstop in the Northwoods League, who helped give the runs back.
Fonfara, who had allowed just four hits until the seventh arrived, hit Chris Paul to lead off the inning, then surrendered a double to Mark Rhine that left runners on second and third.

After inducing a pop-up to Will Huff, Nick Rau hit a tricky grounder to short, where the elder Kay was waiting , prepared to surrender one run in return for the out.

But Kay misplayed the ball, recording his second error of the night and both runners scored, with Rau ending up on second. He didn’t stay there long, arriving home on Phil Imholte’s line shot to left, evening the score at 3-3.

But the error bug caught up with the Rox in the eighth, with rookie sensation Donley on first for the Cats.

Reliever Will Flor, the St. Cloud’s third pitcher of the night, unleashed a wild pick-off attempt that rolled all the way to the Border Cats bullpen, allowing Donley to race to third, 90 feet from scoring.

It was just the opportunity Cory Kay was looking for.

“I was just trying to put it in play, with a man on third and the infield in. You’ve just got to hit it to the outfield. I actually got fooled and it broke my bat and it was kind of a bloop hit over the second baseman’s head. But that’s baseball, things work out.”
Cats manager Andy Judkins, whose team improved to 6-8 in first half play, said the younger Kay has put a lot of effort into improving his game to be able to play at this level.

“We’ve been doing some early work with him, trying to get him to do stuff like that. The hard work’s been paying off and it showed tonight,” Judkins said.

Despite the second straight win, the first-year skipper said there’s still plenty for his team to work on as the final full-time players finish funneling into Thunder Bay.

“We had 10 hits again tonight,” he said. “We didn’t group as many together as we did last night, but we were able to get three runs and then the last one later in the game and those are the big ones that count. The guys played hard and they played all nine innings and it worked out, we got a win on top of it.”

Billy Soule started the game for St. Cloud, lasting five scoreless innings before giving way to Soimkin. Both starters settled for no decisions, with the win going to Cats reliever Chad Richie (W, 1-0), who took over after Fonfara departed with seven innings of mostly effective six-hit ball under his belt.

Cats reliever Jordan McCoy allowed one hit closing it out in the ninth, picking up his third save of the year.

Claw marks: Outfielder Luke Willis arrived in the city on Tuesday and will be available to play in Wednesday’s morning matinee rematch against the renamed Rox … Northwoods League officials said 129 current and former league players were taken in last week’s MLB first-year players’ draft. That works out to about one in 10 players. Mankato’s Tyler Naquin, an outfielder at Texas A&M, was the highest chosen, going 15th overall to Cleveland. Outfielder Mitch Haniger was also a first-rounder, going 38th to Milwaukee. Two Cats, Brad Delatte (fifth round, Toronto) and Casey Selsor (23rd round, Washington), were also among those picked … Tuesday’s attendance was listed at 663.