Huskies struggle to get men on base in Monday’s loss
Duluth, Minn — The Duluth Huskies faced the St. Cloud Rox in the first of a seven-game homestand Monday night at Wade Stadium. RJ Martinez took the mound for the Rox, who stand a game and a half out of 1st place in the Great Plains West, while Dennis Boatman was on the bump for Duluth in his 2nd start of the year.
Both teams would put up goose eggs through the first two innings as the Rox and Huskies combined to log a hit, one HBP, and a walk.
A Collin Hopkins double and a Wade Meckler single in the bottom half of the 3rd put runners on the corners with one out for Nic Kent. Kent would hit a hard ground ball to Freddy Achecar at 1st base who would step on first and fire to home to try and nail Hopkins, but he would beat out the throw to put Duluth up by a run.
With Garrett Delano on 1st base with two outs, Freddy Achecar hit a line drive that ricocheted off the glove of the second baseman Christian Kirkley who was shifted into shallow right field. Delano would be able to cross home plate on the triple and make it a tie game at 1-1.
The Rox scratched two runs across to take a 2-1 lead in the top of the 5th when with runners on the corners with 2 outs, Jordan Barth line a 2 RBI to the foul pole in left field. Garett Delano and Hance Smith would then both walk to load the bases for Freddy Achecar who tripled in the Rox’s first run of the evening. Then another run would be walked home extend St. Cloud’s lead to 3. Dennis Boatman would exit the game afterward as he gave up 4 runs on 2 hits, walked 6 and struck out 4 over 4.2 IP. Evan Yedinak would be the one to relieve him and would strike out Brendan Tinsman to leave the bases loaded.
St. Cloud kept their bats hot as Zack Elliot and Ben Carew hit a single and a double respectively to put runners in scoring position with one out for Gus Steiger. Steiger would hit a high infield chopper that scored Elliot to give the Rox their 5th run. However, Steiger would be caught stealing to give the Huskies their second out. But it wouldn’t matter much as Jordan Barth blasted a two-run home run over the left field fence, making it 7-1 St. Cloud. They wouldn’t stop there as two more singles and a double brought home Garett Delano, making it a five-run inning for the Rox and extending their lead to 7. St. Cloud scored six of their runs in tonight’s game with two outs.
RJ Martinez would issue three walks in a row to Nic Kent, Max Guzman, and Alex Tappen to start the bottom of the 6th inning, which would spell the end of the night for him. He gave up three runs on 4 hits and struck out 7. Rhyse Dee would take over for him with the bases loaded with no outs and would throw a wild pitch that allowed Nic Kent to score. After Danny Zimmerman struck out swinging, Xavier Bussey laced a fly ball out to center field that brought home Max Guzman on a sac fly. The game would go into the final three innings with St. Cloud remaining up by a score of 8-3.
Erik Kaiser took the mound for Duluth in the 7th inning to replace Yedinak. He would pitch perfect 7th, 8th, and 9th innings and struck out 3 of the 9 batters he faced. Matt Hogan would try to start a two-out rally in the bottom of the 9th with a double to left center, but Collin Hopkins would line out to center field to give the Rox a game one win by a final score of 8-3.
The Huskies face the Rox again on Tuesday night. First pitch is set for 6:35 pm with live game coverage on 92.1 The Fan and twinportssportshub.com beginning at 6:25 pm. All Duluth Huskies and Northwoods League games are live streamed online at portal.stretchlive.com/nwl to watch.
Be sure to follow the Duluth Huskies on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all season long. Check out duluthhuskies.com for tickets to upcoming games. For more in-depth news on the Huskies, be sure to follow @XtraInningsWithRyne and @JoeChatzHuskies on Facebook.
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The Duluth Huskies are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in its 26th anniversary season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 200 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.duluthhuskies.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Huskies as your favorite team.
