Eau Claire, WI- In what has been a season headlined by fantastic pitching for the Eau Claire Express (4-7) thus far, Friday night's loss to the Bismarck Larks (6-5) marked the second-consecutive contest where the arms struggled to keep the team within striking distance.
The pitching staff would come dangerously close to matching last night's disastrous 12-walk parade of free passes by issuing 11 bases on balls to Bismarck in this one.
Eau Claire starting pitcher Ryan Zimmerman (1-1) lasted just four innings and picked up the loss, as he walked five batters on his way to surrendering two earned runs.
Zimmerman's reliever comrades Josh Gaworski and Jack Wolger wouldn't fair much better than he, combining to give up four earned runs while walking an additional six Bismarck hitters.
Trailing for most of the game, the Express would cut the Larks' 5-1 lead to just one of run in the sixth. Following a Rudy Rott single and a walk by Zach Ashford, Dominic Clementi picked up his first NWL RBI on a run-scoring single. The next batter, Taylor Field, would drop a double into right field that would bring two more to make it a 5-4 ballgame. Unfortunately for the Express, they wouldn't be able to do any more damage in the frame.
Bismarck would go on to score a run-per-inning in the seventh, eighth and ninth to extend their lead to four runs for the second time on the night.
Eau Claire would fight back in the bottom of the ninth, scoring on an RBI double from Rudy Rott and then once more on a sac fly off the bat of Pete McEvoy. With two down and runners on second and third, Clementi would walk (the fourth time he reached base in the game) to load the bases for the catcher, Field. But after coming through with the big run-scoring double in the sixth, Field came up empty here, grounding into a 1-3 putout to end the game at 8-6, and send us to the fireworks portion of the evening.
Tomorrow night's rematch with the Larks at Carson Park will start at 6:35 PM with gates opening an hour prior to first pitch.
The Eau Claire Express are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 23-year-old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 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 170 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM) and Lucas Duda (NYM). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.eauclaireexpress.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Express as your favorite team.