THUNDER BAY – What a difference a day makes.
Less than 24 hours after the two teams combined to score 30 runs, the Thunder Bay Border Cats and Rochester Honkers hunkered down and only put up three runs between them in a Canada Day pitching duel at Port Arthur Stadium.
Unlike Sunday’s 17-13 triumph, the clutch hitting just didn’t come through in the crunch, unable to cash in the tying run in the sixth with runners on second and third and one out.
It was the last good chance the Border Cats would get to score, Honkers reliever A.J. Rasmussen coming on with two outs in the seventh to retire the final seven Thunder Bay batters in order.
The 2-1 loss snapped Thunder Bay’s modest four-game winning streak.
It was a tough day at the plate, said shortstop Alex Urlaub, who will depart the team at the conclusion of the second half on Tuesday.
“It was a really well-pitched game and well-defended game,” said Urlaub, a junior at North Dakota State University.
“I feel like both teams hit a couple of balls that could have left the yard and changed the game, but the wind just kept them in today.”
Righthander Kansai Sugimoto got the start for the Border Cats and held the Honkers in check, for the most part, though he did struggle a bit with his control, including a scary moment in the fourth when a pitch got away from him, striking Rochester’s Brendan O’Sullivan in the helmet.
O’Sullivan took a few minutes and trotted down to first, remaining in the game.
The Honkers opened the scoring an inning earlier Luca DiPaolo hitting a bases-loaded slow roller to second that scored Paul Schoenfeld from third. An alert Zane Skansi, who had no play at first, then fired the ball to the plate, where catcher Duncan Mathews tagged out Reiss Calvin trying to score a second run on the play.
Rochester had a chance to add another run in the fourth, but made the mistake of testing the arm of Thunder Bay right-fielder Ty Hamilton.
With one out and the bases full, Grant MacArthur lifted a fly ball that Hamilton fielder, then turned and fired a bullet to the plate to gun down Mattie Thomas for the third out of the inning, keeping the Cats within a run at the time.
Schoenfeld crossed the plate a second time in the fifth, with Dylan Mulcahy on the mound. He walked to open the inning, took second on a ground out and scored on a Dom Rodriguez single to centre.
Mulcahy and Turner Spoljaric, the son of former Toronto Blue Jays hurler Paul Spoljaric, shut the Honker down the rest of the way, now allowing a run over the final four innings of the contest, played in front of 1,278 fans.
Thunder Bay’s lone run came in the bottom of the fifth.
Brayden Kuriger and Ty Hamilton singled to start the inning against Rochester starter Cade Cushing, who then retired the next two batters.
Skansi, second on the Cats with 20 RBIs, singled in Kuriger, but Cole Ketzner, the Cats leading RBI man, grounded out the Cushing, who tagged him running down the line to end the threat.
The Cats had runners on second and third with one out in the sixth, but Cushing struck out Kuriger and, after hitting Ty Hamilton to load the bases, struck out Urlaub, ending the inning.
Cushing, who threw 112 pitches, allowed six hits and one run, to earn the win. Sugimoto took the loss, allowing one run on four hits and four walks.
“It’s a tough loss. Our pitchers did great, but at the end of the day, we’ve just got to swing it better,” said Thunder Bay leadoff hitter Lucas Terilli, also leaving the team after Tuesday’s contest.
Interim manager Bobby DeNucci, filling in for a suspended J.M. Kelly, agreed.
“For the most part, we pitched pretty well. We played really well defensively today, but offensively we didn’t execute. We never got that big hit. We really just struggled offensively.”
The Cats (17-16) and Honkers (12-23) wrap up the first half and their four-game series on Tuesday night.
