Things listless in loss to Boomers
The Wild Things were riding a wave of momentum entering Friday night. They had won seven of their last 10 games to climb back into the Frontier League playoff race. They were playing at home – their first weekend home date in more than a month – and were greeted by their second-largest crowd of the season.
And what did the Wild Things do?
The offense face-planted and one messy defensive inning had Washington playing catch up all night.
Schaumburg used one good inning of hitting – the third -and nine good innings of pitching to blank Washington, 5-0, before 3,184 at Consol Energy Park.
“That was disappointing to say the least. It was pretty ugly,” Washington manager Gregg Langbehn said. “We couldn’t give them anything to cheer about, but we certainly gave them plenty of talk about.”
What had Langbehn so upset was a four-run third inning by Schaumburg that included several defensive miscues and what was scored as an inside-the-park home run by Schaumburg’s Kenny Towns.
Nick Oberg, the No. 9 hitter in Schaumburg’s lineup, led off the third with a bloop single that landed in no-man’s land between Washington shortstop Austin Wobrock, second baseman Ryne Willard and center fielder Chris Grayson.
Tobias Moreno followed with a single up the middle and Oberg moved to third base. When Gayson’s throw to third sailed over the cutoff man, it allowed Moreno to scoot into second base. Jordan Dean followed with a two-run single and the throw to home plate allowed Dean to advance an extra base to second.
Following a strikeout, Towns, the Boomers’ third baseman, hit a shot off Washington starter Chase Cunningham (5-9) that went to went to the wall in right centerfield. Towns had an easy triple, both Wobrock and Willard went deep into center field and were standing side-by-side when Grayson’s throw sailed over them and bounced back into the infield. First baseman Jimmy Yezzo tracked down the bouncing ball but his throw to the plate was too late to get Towns, who never stopped running on the play.
“The only other time I hit an inside-the-parker was in high school,” Towns said. “The outfielders lost the ball in the lights. They were like 50 feet away from it and I never stopped running.”
Towns didn’t stop this time, either.
“Ran through the stop sign,” he said.
The inning left Langbehn shaking his head and embarrassed by his team’s defensive play.
“I’ve seen better fundamentals in the Little League World Series,” he admitted. “We overthrew the cutoff three times in one inning, there was a bloop that we weren’t aggressive on going out and not aggressive enough coming in on.”
Schaumburg starting pitcher Brett Mabry (2-3) combined with four Boomers relievers on a six-hit shutout. It was only the fifth outing by Mabry since May 28, when he suffered a hairline fracture of a nasal cavity when struck in the face by a line drive off the bat of Washington’s David Popkins.
Mabry got a measure of revenge this time, throwing six shutout innings and striking out seven.
Cunningham went eight innings and pitched better than his final numbers suggest. He gave up eight hits but retired 12 batters in a row after Towns’ inside-the-park homer.
“Cunningham deserved a better fate,” Langbehn said. “We couldn’t hit with runners in scoring position. We need to control the game with our pitching and defense and that got away from us in that one inning.”
Schaumburg scored an insurance run in the ninth.
The Boomers began the night 7½ games out of first place in the East Division and 5½ back in the wild-card race. Towns, however, is hitting like anything is possible as he has 15 hits in the Boomers’ last 11 games. And the Schaumburg pitching staff has a current streak of 22 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings.
“We need some things to go our way,” he said. “We need to win. We can’t lose many more, but the way we’re pitching …”
Former Wild Things pitcher Zac Grotz, who had his contract purchased Thursday by the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been assigned to the Ogden Raptors of the rookie level Pioneers League. … Prior to the game, Washington signed left-handed pitcher Brandon Bixler to fill Grotz’s roster spot. Bixler played for Lancaster in the Atlantic League this year. … Grayson had three of Washington’s six hits. The Wild Things were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.