Rocket bats fall short

The Rockets rallied to erase a four-run deficit.
With an opportunity to come back again in the final inning, the Portland bats weren’t able to break through in a 6-4 loss Thursday to the Fort Wayne Panthers at Runkle-Miller Field.
Portland (15-10) had runners at the corners with one out in the home half of the ninth inning, but Mitch Waters hit the ball off the handle to pop out to the pitcher and TJ Lindstrand hit a rocket to Keaton Sullivan at first to end the game.
“We just needed that line drive to go past the first baseman,” Rockets coach Randy Miller said. “In baseball, sometimes you’re not rewarded for a good sting at the bat.”
Fort Wayne (8-14) nabbed a two-run lead in the eighth when Brandon Soat beat a drawn-in Portland infield to score Adam Book and Chase Kahlenbach.
“That was big,” Fort Wayne coach Chris Howell said. “We were looking for a fly ball. He’s our No. 3 hitter with a lot of power.
“He squared it up and put it right back up the middle for us. It’s nice to see your best hitter come through in clutch situations.”
Five Rockets combined to walk nine and hit another three batters, which helped the Panthers get out to a four-run lead after five innings
Portland starter Alex Delk walked in the game’s first run in the second, and Fort Wayne drew three straight walks one inning later — two off Delk to chase him from the mound and one off reliever Gary Williams — to extended its lead.
The Panthers scored two runs in the third, one on a double steal with runners at the corners and another three batters later on a groundout to the Rockets’ Kyle Selvey at shortstop, to go up 3-0.
Sullivan drew a leadoff walk in the fifth and scored on a double to the gap in right field by Brock Logan for a four-run Fort Wayne advantage.
It had a chance to add on more in the sixth with two runners in scoring position, but Selvey, a 2014 Jay County High School graduate, backhanded a ball deep in the hole between shortstop and third base and threw across the diamond to fellow JCHS alum Thomas McCowan at first to get the out.
“The play of Kyle Selvey was stellar,” Miller said “(He) saved a couple run opportunities for them with his defensive prowess.”
Then, the Rocket bats came to life.
Waters led off the bottom of the sixth by scorching a liner over the head of Ian Bellville in left field. Linstrand, McCowan, Cody Krumlauf, Selvey and Dalton Tinsley all hit singles in the frame as Portland scored four runs with the help of a fielding error by Bellville.
Only one of the four runs was earned.
“We were right back in the game,” Miller said of the Rockets knotting the game at four apiece. “You’d think that we’d ride that momentum, but we hit balls hard right at them.”
After Fort Wayne took a 1-0 lead in the second, Portland had two chances to tie the game but had runners thrown out at the plate.
Conner Milligan rifled a double down the left field line and McCowan, a Dunkirk native, missed a late stop sign from Miller at third base and was gunned down on Kahlenbach’s relay throw from Bellville.
“It was a poor read on the third base coach’s part.” Miller said in self-evaluation. “To have Thomas McCowan try and score from first, that is a lot to ask of him.
“To their credit, they made the play and we made the base-running blunder. That was the coach’s fault.”
Two batters later, Milligan was tagged out to end the inning on a passed ball that ricocheted off the concrete backstop.
The chances for Portland kept coming.
With bases loaded and one out in the third — Tinsley hit a single, Logan Barnes walked and Williams was hit by a pitch — Waters hit a hard ground ball to Nick Huyck at third base to start an inning-ending double play.
Portland managed 11 hits from 10 different players, with Tinsley the only Rocket to have a multi-hit game.[[In-content Ad]]