THUNDER BAY – Closing out games has been a problem so far this season at Port Arthur Stadium.
The Border Cats might have the answer in Kannon Carr.
The Cats reliever was almost unhittable on Saturday night, striking out five of the seven batters he faced to preserve a 4-2 win over the Eau Claire Expres, a game that saw the team battle back from a run down in the seventh to eke out the victory.
The right-hander said he was built for pressure situations, and welcomed the opportunity to hang around an extra inning to close this one out, having entered the contest with two outs in the seventh and struck out Isaac Lyons, stranding runners on second and third to keep the Border Cats within a run.
“I kind of knew going in that if I was going to be an tight situation where I was going to need to get some outs pretty quickly,” said Carr, a second-year player with Missouri’s Jefferson College, a hurler his manager thinks will get a long look in his MLB draft year.
“My mindset was kind of going in, throwing strikes, filling up the zone and letting my defence work behind me.”
The defence, which has been shaky at times this season, was rock solid all night. The lone hit Carr gave up, a single to shortstop Ryan Nagelbach to lead off the ninth, was erased with a 6-4-3 double play, followed by a game-ending strikeout of Cole Conn.
Border Cats 1B Cole Ketzner, who was 1-for-2 with a double, an RBI and a pair of walks, said Carr is a huge part of any success the team is going to have this summer.
“He’s a young kid. He’s electric. Any time he gets out there he does his thing and we love having hin on the back end of the bullpen helping us win ballgames,” Ketzner said.
The Cats trailed most of the way in this one, starter Caden Fiveash, giving up a quick run in the first, after hitting the first batter he faced and giving up a single to Nagelbach that put runners on the corner for Bronson Rivera, whose flyball to left allowed Rayth Petersen to scamper home with the game’s first run.
Eau Claire doubled their lead in the fifth, reliever Ryan Beaird unable to cleanly handle a dribbler to the mound that let Rivera, who was running on contact, cross the plate for a 2-0 Eau Claire lead.
Thunder Bay (7-8) got one back in their half of the fifth. Patrick Engskov led off with a double off Express starter Spencer Wright and came around to score on a single by catcher Easton Culp the No. 9 hitter in the Border Cats lineup.
They took the lead for good in the seventh, thanks in part to control problems in the Eau Claire bullpen.
Michael Trausch, who stranded a lead-off double in the sixth, struggled after retiring pinch hitter Brayden Kuriger to open the seventh.
Engskov was hit by a pitch, Culp walked, and then with two outs, Johnsone singled to left to load the bases.
Trausch then walked Ketzner to tie the game, Tyler Kehoe to give the Cats a 3-2 lead and Tyler Griggs to provide an insurance run, before giving way to Tyler Schmitt.
“If they want to win bad enough, they’ll do whatever it takes to get there,” said Thunder Bay manager J.M. Kelly. “It’s really good to see that, it’s really good to see the fight in our guys.”
Thunder Bay is fourth in the Great Plains East division, but one of four teams with eight losses, all of them occupying the top three spots.
The two teams meet again on Sunday at 1:35 p.m.
