Kenosha, WI – July 13, 2016. Frank German (North Florida) turned in a masterful performance on Wednesday night, blanking the Kenosha Kingfish (2-6, 18-26) across six innings of work. The Mallards (5-3, 28-16) would go on to beat the Kingfish at historic Simmons Field by a score of 7-0.
Making his seventh start of the summer, German seemed to get better as the situations got tougher. The right-hander had only one inning in which a batter didn’t reach base, but German was able to keep his composure through all of the adversity.
“With runners on, I was really trying to paint the corner and throw strikes,” German said. “I was getting a lot of strikes called on the outside edge and had a mentality that I could work through anything.”
German allowed three hits and a walk in his outing, lowering his ERA to 1.88 on the year. Opponents are now hitting only .234 off of German this summer.
Madison got a chunk of their scoring done early on in the ballgame, using a Nate Palace (Valparaiso) two-run home run in the second inning to break the scoreless tie. Palace, who homered in the win over the Kingfish on Tuesday, has now hit a long ball three times on the 2016 campaign. A Nelson Maldonado (Florida) double down the line in left field would score Cameron Frost (Washington State) all the way from first, as a good piece of hitting was able to showcase the blazing speed of Frost.
Alex Lyons (Purdue), the newest addition to the Mallards, took over for German in the seventh frame. The 6’5,” 215-pound right-hander from Richmond, Indiana, put on a clinic in his two innings of work, striking out four and allowing no runs. Lyons had his fastball working, peppering the strike zone with his hard stuff. His most impressive pitch of the night wasn’t a fastball, however, as Lyons got Matt Byars (Michigan State) to swing and miss on a beautiful 1-2 changeup.
The Mallards would tack on a few more runs in the top of the ninth inning, with Maldonado drawing a bases-loaded walk off of Kenosha reliever JR Holloway (Texas State) to bring in Nick Roark (Oral Roberts). A wild pitch to the next batter would score Noah Cummings (Oral Roberts) and a Nico Hoerner (Stanford) grounder would allow Joe Stefanki (San Jose State) to cross the plate. Zach Jarrett (UNC-Charlotte) would ground out to the Kingfish second baseman to score Maldonado, extending the Madison lead to 7-0. Eight men would step into the batter's box for the Mallards in the four-run ninth inning, propelling the green and gold to a lead they would not let go of.
Frank German picked up his third win of 2016, good for third on the team in that category. Charlie Hecht (Georgia College) took the loss, dropping to 1-3 on the year. He now owns a 4.96 ERA after allowing three runs in six innings of work.
The shutout marked the Mallards third shutout victory of the summer, as the pitching staff racked up 14 strikeouts in the contest. Madison pitchers blanked the Kingfish for 17 consecutive innings in the two-game set, with Kenosha stranding a total of 22 base runners in the series
The Mallards will return to the Duck Pond Thursday, July 14th, to take on the Rockford Rivets at 7:05 pm. The contest will feature a Pepsi Double Decker Pizza Bus Maynard bobblehead giveaway. Tickets are available for purchase by visiting MallardsBaseball.com, calling the Mallards ticket office at 608-246-4277, or stopping in the ticket office at 2920 N Sherman Ave.
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The Madison Mallards are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Playing its 23rd season of summer collegiate baseball, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 18 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 150 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (CWS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM), Lucas Duda (NYM) and Ben Zobrist (CHC). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.mallardsbaseball.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store and set the Mallards as your favorite team.
