Rough start

Pat MacKenzie was probably the least likely guy to break a season-long homerless drought for the Waterloo Bucks.

One of the smallest guys on the team, MacKenize only had three extra-base hits in 83 at bats this summer.

That ended in a hurry Friday night at Subway Field. MacKenzie smacked the second pitch he saw from Thunder Bay Border Cats starter Ryan Atwood – the second pitch thrown all night – over the wall in right, ending the drought and setting the stage for a seven-run first that sunk the Cats and ended Atwood’s evening in a hurry.

“It felt good off the bat. I’m not trying to hit a homerun at all. I’m just a little guy trying to get on base. But the best part about it was how excited everyone in the dugout was, all my teammates, because they knew it was our first homerun,” said MacKenzie, who also hit the Bucks’ first triple of the season later in the season, driving home Waterloo’s 13th run in the 14-5 trouncing of the Border Cats (11-19).

“Everyone was joking with me before the game that I might be the first one because I’m the smallest guy. So it was just kind of a fun moment. That’s what’s great about baseball.”

MacKenzie’s homerun lit a fire under the first-place Bucks (20-9), who gained half a game on rained-out Willmar, and possibly unnerved Atwood on the mound.

The Bucks, thanks in part to five walks issued by Atwood in his one and only inning of work, added six more runs in the inning and took control of the Northwoods League contest in a hurry.

Atwood left with two outs after throwing 43 pitches, only 17 of them for strikes.

Border Cats manager Dan Holcomb, who later trotted out three position players to mop up the lopsided loss, the team’s third in a row, said he was hoping for a little longer outing from his starter.

“It was definitely one of the rougher losses of the year, especially that first-inning hole with seven runs was tough,” a dejected Holcomb said.

“We were right with them the rest of the game. It was a 7-5 game the rest of the way, so we were right with them no matter what. It was just that seven-run inning. Anytime you do that it’s tough to come back.”

Give the Cats offence credit for not giving up.

They rallied with a pair in the second off Waterloo starter T.J. Renda, helped in part by back-to-back fielding miscues and a Cory Kay single that scored Brad Burcroff.

But the Bucks struck again in the fourth, scoring three more on reliever Cameron Wood to go up 10-2, the key blow a Blake Hickman single that pushed two more runners across the plate.

Kay, Dylan Becker and Jason Vosler responded with RBI singles in the Cats half of the inning, chasing Renda in favour of Drasen Johnson (W, 2-0), to cut the Waterloo advantage to five.

“We knew they were going to score a few more. You just hope your offence can bring you back in the game, which they did again tonight. They scored enough runs for us. We just have to be able to hold them off early in the game,” Holcomb said. “That’s kind of been our Achilles heel all year.” 

But that’s as close as the Border Cats would come. In fact, it was the last real threat they’d mount.

The Bucks scored two more off Burcroff in the fifth and another pair on Joey Hawkins – who went 2-for-4 at the dish – in the eighth.

Claw marks: The Cats bid farewell to southpaw John Havird, who has been shut down because of elbow concerns. Havird was 1-1 with a 1.39 ERA … Thunder Bay’s ERA dropped to 6.16, the second worst in the Northwoods League, ahead of Alexandria’s 7.29 mark … Vosler’s RBI was his 25th, the fifth-most in the league. The Cats sigle-season record is 45, set by Dan Soukup in the team’s first season in 2003 and tied two years later by Matt Mangini, still the lone Border Cats graduate to make the major leagues ... Highly touted Canadian infielder Kyle Hahn is expected to arrive in the city on Sunday ... Just 353 fans paid to see the game.