Lehrman, errors lift Portland over Cardinals (06/21/06)

GENEVA — Victor Canales is convinced his team is on the verge of playing a complete game. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Another thing that hasn’t happened — finding a way to stop Derek Lehrman.

The Portland Rocket catcher clobbered a pair of home runs Tuesday night, leading his team to a 9-3 victory over Canales’ host Geneva Cardinals.

Lehrman, who has led the Portland offense all season, gave the team its bookend runs. He hit a two-out, solo home run to right-center field in the first inning, then smacked another homer to lead off the top of the ninth.

He also had a two-run single in the fifth the all-important fifth inning to finished 3-for-4 with two runs and four RBIs.

“That’s why we’ve got him in the three spot, just so we know he gets more at-bats,” said Rocket manager Randy Miller, whose team improved to 9-2 overall and remained unbeaten in the Midwest Prospects League at 7-0. “We’ve got a few table-setters who get their jobs done and, man, he’s been an RBI machine. You can expect a quality at-bat every time he gets up.”

The game was tied at two after four innings, but errors burned the home team in the fifth.

After Matt Steinke led off with an infield single, Lenny Koesters reached base on an error by Cardinal second baseman Troy Hirschy. Chad Geyer scored Steinke with a sacrifice fly to right field, and Jay County graduate Heath Williams got on base thanks to another Hirschy error.

Matt Perkins struck out Adam Childs for the second out of the inning, but Lehrman tagged reliever Dan Fensler with a two-out, two run single.

“That was big,” said Miller. “In wood-bat ball, if you give up five-out innings, you’re going to make your pitchers labor. Our guys know how to make things happen. If you give them an inch, they may take the next mile.”

The Rockets followed their three unearned runs in the fifth by tagging Fensler for four straight hits and three earned runs in the sixth. Todd Graves started the run with a double to left field, and Steinke, Koesters and Geyer added consecutive singles to build an 8-2 lead.

“We get to the fifth, sixth, seventh inning with the Rockets and we start dropping balls and making mistakes,” said Canales. “The difference being when we do that with other teams, we can still come back. The other teams that we’ve played are not as sound as the Rockets so we still come back and end up winning at the end. We’ve got to stop living off of that and start living off of doing everything right.”

Geneva (7-6) had an opportunity to make the game interesting again in the eighth inning. It scored one run and had the bases loaded with just one out, but third baseman Mitch Waters (Jay County) erased the run-scoring chance.

Matt Holycross smacked a line drive toward left field, but Waters ranged to his left, snagged the ball and tossed to Williams at second to complete an inning-ending double play.

The Cardinals also missed chances earlier in the game, striking out twice with runners on base in the first inning and again in the sixth.

“There’s a lot of big swings with two strikes,” said Canales. “We’ve got to get better at (putting the ball in play) and understand that that’s what wins ball games. You can win some games with the home run, but you can’t live for that.”

Matt Ousley (South Adams) extended his record Rocket victory total, giving up two runs — one earned — on three hits for the win. He struck out three batters.

Steinke had two hits and two runs, and Koesters scored three times.

Nate Colclasure led Geneva with three hits, including a double, and Corey Oetting finished with two hits and two RBIs. The top five hitters in the Cardinal order accounted for all eight hits while the bottom four batters finished a combined 0-for-13.

Perkins took the loss as he allowed five runs — two earned — on two hits and three walks.[[In-content Ad]]