Another heartbreaking end: Wild Things can’t complete comeback, lose Game 5
Wild Things can’t complete comeback, lose Game 5
The Wild Things have spent 24 seasons chasing an elusive Frontier League championship.
They’ll never win one.
That was assured Sunday evening when the Evansville Otters scored six runs over the first three innings and went on to a 9-6 victory over Washington in Game 5 of the best-of-5 Midwest Conference finals Sunday at EQT Park.
The Otters will play Atlantic Conference champion Ottawa in the finals that start Tuesday night In Evansville.
Why will the Wild Things never win a Frontier League championship? Because the league is changing its name next month to the National Association of Professional Baseball.
In its final game under the Frontier League banner, Washington got off to a bad start, falling behind 6-0 in the third inning, and never recovered, though they tried. Washington outhit Evansville 14-13 and produced at least one base hit in every inning, but the Otters had three home runs to Washington’s one.
“There was a lot of action in the series, for sure,” Washington manager Tom Vaeth said. “We dug ourselves a 6-0 hole. We had only two good starts in the series and won both of them.”
In the pivotal game, Evansville took a 1-0 lead when Logan Brown hit a 3-2 pitch from Washington starter Kelvin Perez over the wall in right field to begin the top of the second inning. Brown, a catcher, left Game 2 after taking a foul tip off his mask. He was in concussion protocol and didn’t make the trip to Washington on Thursday.
Cleared from protocol on Saturday, Brown took a 5:30 a.m. flight Sunday morning from Evansville to Charlotte and another to Pittsburgh. He arrived in Washington around noon.
The roof collapsed on the Wild Things and their season an inning later. Evansville’s first four batters reached base on singles to push the lead to 2-0. Dennis Pierce added a sacrifice fly and Brown hit a slow grounder to second base that brought home another run and gave the Otters a 4-0 lead.
LG Castillo, who played for Washington in 2022, capped the inning when he hit a two-run homer to left field and suddenly Evansville had a 6-0 lead early in the third inning.
Washington scored one run in the bottom of the third and came within inches of adding three more runs. Two walks and a wild pitch by Evansville starter Ryan Wiltse set up an RBI single by Jeff Liquori.
Washington had runners on the corners with two outs when Cole Fowler hit a high drive to deep right field. Robertson, Evansville’s 6-5 right fielder, went back, reached up and caught the ball with his back firmly against the wall.
“The series could have gone either way,” Evansville manager Andy McCauley said. “We knew we didn’t have anything clinched when we came here up 2-0.”
Washington left five runners on base in the first three innings and 12 in the game.
The Wild Things stayed close through the fifth inning because of another stellar relief outing by Michael O’Hanlon. He tossed his third scoreless outing of the series, each 2 1/3 innings in length.
The Wild Things closed to within 6-2 in the fourth when Caleb Ketchup led off with a double, moved to third on a balk and scored when Antonio Monroy reached on an infield single.
Evansville scored twice in the sixth off Washington reliever Ben Kowalski, and Wild Things catcher Isaias Quiroz hit a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth that ended with the Otters on top 8-3.
Mark Black hit a solo homer in the eighth for Evansville and Washington scored three times in the bottom of the ninth with the help of a three-base throwing error by closer Junior Cerda.
Vaeth admitted the series might have been lost in Game 1, won by Evansville, 14-13.
“When you score 13 runs that should be enough to win a ballgame,” he said. “I feel like we outplayed them in three games, but we didn’t pitch in Games 1 and 2. We also made some costly errors in Game 1.
“But it’s no different here than it is in any other sport. In the playoffs, you need your stars to come through, and guys who you don’t expect to have big games to come through. You need guys to produce in big games.”
Extra bases
Washington is 1-4 all-time when playing in a Game 5 and 0-4 when playing at home in Game 5. Evansville is 3-1 in Game 5s. … Evansville made 22 pitching changes in the five games. … Liquori had a fantastic postseason, going 19-for-32 with 16 RBI in eight games. … The start of the game was delayed 11 minutes because of rain.