Rockets blank Bankers

Randy Miller knows his team doesn’t have the power it did last year, so he’s had to focus more on fundamental baseball.
The Rockets performed in all three aspects of the game —pitching, hitting and defense —in a 3-0 win Tuesday over Twin City Bankers, Taylor University’s summer league team.
“We talked about that before the game started,” Miller said, whose team moved to 15-9 on the season. “We’re going to pitch, we’re going to defend and we’re going to have timely hitting.”
It wasn’t just timely hitting that helped Portland win, but timely sacrifices as well.
Cody Krumlauf drew a leadoff walk to start the home half of the third inning, and 2014 Jay County High School graduate Kyle Selvey, who was making his Rockets debut, laid down a sacrifice bunt to put Krumlauf in scoring position.
Dalton Tinsley launched the first pitch of his at bat to the alley in right-center field for a potential RBI double, but Twin City center fielder Grant Hendershot tracked it down to prevent any damage. The Rockets caught a break on the next at bat, however, when Logan Barnes hit a grounder to third baseman Cam Screeton, who overthrew Jake West at first allowing Krumlauf to score the game’s first run.
Portland tacked on one more in the fourth on an RBI single by Krumlauf, and added another in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by JCHS graduate Mitch Waters.
Tinsley walked to start the fifth and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Logan Barnes. Geoff Bowers hit a bloop single over the Twin City shortstop Matt Patton to put runners at the corners with one out to set up Waters’ sacrifice.
“Get ‘em on, get ‘em over and get ‘em in,” Miller said of Portland’s small-ball. “We have guys that know the game. Mitch hits a sacrifice fly, they make a misplay and we take advantage.”
On the other hand, the Twin City offense wasn’t able to capitalize on its chances.
Despite Rocket starter Matt Helm not allowing a hit, the Bankers had runners on base in all but one frame. Twin City had men on first and second twice — once in the fourth and again in the sixth — but Jon Miller went down on a called third strike both times to end the chance.
“We stretched Helm out,” Miller said of his starter. “That’s the longest he’s gone all year. He did a good job.
“I didn’t realize he had a no-hitter after four, but we took him out anyway.”
Miller added had he realized Helm’s was in the midst of something special, he would have still gone to his bullpen. Helm, who had walked five batters including three of the five he faced in the fourth, was at 72 pitches, and Miller said he wanted to save his arm.
The right-handed Helm, who is scheduled to start Sunday against the Fort Wayne Expos, finished with six strikeouts.
Justin Miller pitched the final three innings for the Rockets, allowing two hits, striking out six and walking a pair to get the save.
Alex Delk had two of the Rockets’ four hits, including a double in the right-field gap in the second inning. Krumlauf and Bowers had the other two hits for Portland.
The Rockets return to action at 7 p.m. Thursday as they host the Fort Wayne Panthers at Runkle-Miller Field.[[In-content Ad]]