Rockford, Ill.- The Rivets\u2019 offense was shut down by strong Battle Jack pitching on Thursday night. Battle Creek rode starting pitcher Keegan Batka to a three to one victory over Rockford.<\/p>\n
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Battle Creek did all its damage against Rivets starter Ty Rybarczyk in the second inning. Billy Hancock led off the inning with a single and after a Joey Grabanski lineout, the bottom of the Battle Creek lineup strung together three singles. Robbie Merced brought in a run with a sac fly and Bobby Nichols drove home another with an RBI single.<\/p>\n
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Rockford answered with one run in the bottom of the second as Matt Mebane scored after drawing a walk to start the inning. Mebane crossed home on a one out groundout from Drew Baker.<\/p>\n
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Outside of the second, Rybarczyk put together a pitching masterpiece. He pitched seven innings total, striking out seven and allowing just the three earned runs. Rybarczyk had not given up a run prior to this outing and his ERA now sits at 1.50.<\/p>\n
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Alex Pipes was a bright spot for the Rivets today. The reliever from Parkland College pitched two scoreless innings, allowing just one hit, and striking out three.<\/p>\n
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Batka was credited with the win after pitching six innings, allowing just four hits and one earned run. Typically a reliever, this was Batka\u2019s longest outing of the season.<\/p>\n
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Rockford loaded the bases in the eighth with just one out, but Battle Jacks\u2019 reliever Anthony Tejeda overpowered the Rivets bats to escape the jam. Tejeda pitched one and two-thirds innings and was credited with the save.<\/p>\n
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The loss drops Rockford\u2019s record to 8-10 while Battle Creek improves to 11-6. Rockford will face Green Bay on Friday at 6:35 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rockford, Ill.- The Rivets\u2019 offense was shut down by strong Battle Jack pitching on Thursday night. Battle Creek rode starting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":5396,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,38,19],"tags":[167,26,166,169,163,165,164,66,22,23,43,168],"class_list":["post-5407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-news","category-postgame","category-team-news","tag-balls","tag-baseball","tag-bats","tag-battle-creek","tag-battle-jacks","tag-college","tag-college-baseball","tag-northwoods-league","tag-rivets","tag-rockford","tag-rockford-rivets","tag-team"],"yoast_head":"\n