Wisconsin Rapids, WI–The Wisconsin Rapids Rafters have dropped five of their last six games following Saturday night’s 5-2 series-opening loss to the Traverse City Pit Spitters. The Rafters’ offense struggled again, putting up just four hits, and saw just five men reach scoring position.
After both sides traded a scoreless first inning, the Pit Spitters grabbed the early advantage. Evan Orzech broke the scoring seal with a leadoff home run to right-center field to begin the second inning. Two batters later, Tyler Minnick homered to left-center field. It was the first home run for each hitter and Traverse City saw a 2-0 lead. But, they weren’t done yet. Following the home run, back-to-back hits from Cooper Erikson and Andrew Mannelly put runners on second and third with only one out. Rafter starter Brycen Parrish threw a wild pitch allowing Erikson to score. With one out in the inning and runners on the corners, Glenn Miller hit a routine double play ball that was botched at short by Garrett Broussard, allowing a fourth run to score in the inning. The Pit Spitters would add a fifth in the top of the fifth after Colin Summerhill scored on an error made by Chris Conniff at second base.
From there, Traverse City went on cruise control thanks to the excellent work of their starter Aren Gustafson. The left-handed pitcher threw seven innings of four-hit, one-run baseball, and he only had two strikeouts.
Wisconsin Rapids’ lone run against Gustafson came in the fifth inning of play. Jorge De Goti led off the inning with a single and would later come around to score on a two-out single by Ty Johnson. The RBI for Johnson was his 20th of the summer, good for third on the team.
The Rafters would make the game interesting by grabbing one more run in the eighth inning. After Logan Hugo led off the inning with a walk, he proceeded to steal second base in the ensuing at-bat. With Hugo on second, Jack Gurevitch grounded out to short which allowed Hugo to advance an additional 90 feet. With Garrett Broussard at the dish, new Pit Spitter lefty Noah Samol threw a fastball behind Broussard, scoring Hugo from third on the wild pitch.
The Rats were only down three going into the ninth inning but proceeded to go down in order to end the game. Wisconsin Rapids falls to 21-19 this summer and 1-4 in the second half
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Author: David Keech
David Keech is a retired teacher and works as a sportswriter, sports official and as an educational consultant. He has reported on amateur sports since 2011, known as 'KeechDaVoice.' David can be reached at [email protected]
