The Rockford Rivets lost another close game on Friday night at Rivets stadium when they fell to the Battle Creek Bombers 1-0.
The bats have struggled as of late for Rockford and in the last three games they have totaled just three runs. In addition, they have only scored one run on Friday night games this year.
Rivet’s manager Brian Smith is frustrated with the lack of hitting but knows that there is still a long season ahead.
“There hasn’t been hard contact in a few games and it’s just them pressing and not realizing we have 50 games left,” Smith said. “It’s a long summer, they don’t need to be pressing so early into the season.”
Despite picking up the loss, Rivet’s starting pitcher Jackson Bronke had a good outing for Rockford. He went seven innings while striking out seven and allowing just three hits and the lone run. Tanner Propst then came in for relief and pitched two scoreless innings with no hits.
Rivet’s manager Brian Smith acknowledged the consistency of his teams pitching lately.
“This is starting to sound like a broken record but our starting pitcher did a great job again today,” Smith said. “Tanner has been making a lot of adjustments and tonight he did a good job. That’s really the biggest positive we can take out of tonight.”
Bronke boasts a 2.18 earned run average in four starts this season with 30 strikeouts compared to just nine walks.
Neither team seemed to be able to find the bats on Friday, with Rockford finishing with four hits compared to Battle Creek’s three.
With this loss the Rivets move to 13-11 on the season and are now in a tie for fourth place in the South Division of the Northwoods League with the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters.
Tomorrow the Rivets will travel to Green Bay to take on the Bullfrogs at 6:35 pm.
The Rockford Rivets are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in its 25th anniversary season, the Northwoods 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 190 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.rockfordrivets.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Rivets as your favorite team.