Sluggers silenced

With the largest home crowd of the year on hand, it wasn’t difficult for the Rockets to get fired up to take the field.
Mitch Waters didn’t have much trouble keeping the Summit City bats quiet either.
The 2002 Jay County High School graduate racked up 13 strikeouts in eight shutout innings as Portland rolled to a 4-1 victory over the Sluggers.
“It’s always fun on Crossroads night,” said Waters. “We always have a good crowd. It’s easy to get amped up. Having Zach (Tanner) in town is another good reason to have better stuff than normal. It was a good night.”
Tanner was making a one-game cameo for the Rockets (18-10) while his Frontier Greys of the independent Frontier League are on their all-star break, and the shortstop fielded a grounder off of Waters’ first pitch for the opening out of the game. But the Portland pitcher didn’t need much help from his defense as he recorded two strikeouts in each of the first three innings and struck out the side in the fifth on the way to his season-high total.
“He did it to us last time we were here too,” said Summit City manager Mark Delegarza of Waters. “He threw strikes. He got ahead in the count early and he came with off speed. He was just better than our hitters.”
Waters gave up just four hits in his longest outing of the year and did not walk a batter. He sat down leadoff hitter Matt Yolz, Brock Gower, Evan Brown and John Timmerman on strikes two times apiece and never allowed a runner past second base.
He left with a 4-0 lead before Justin Miller gave up the shutout on two walks and two wild pitches in the ninth inning.
“They couldn’t figure out the slider,” said Waters. “They just kept going for me. I was throwing it over for strikes, getting ahead with it and finishing off with it. It was my go-to pitch pretty much most of the night.”
After the one-two-three top of the first, Portland’s bats gave Waters the advantage in the bottom of the frame.
Leadoff man Dalton Tinsley set the table, smacking a single to right field to start the game and then stealing second base. Geoff Bowers delivered an RBI single to center two batters later to give the Rockets the lead for good.
An Alex Delk double and a Cody Krumlauf single made it 2-0 in the second inning, and Portland tacked on two runs in the seventh thanks to two errors, a walk and a Logan Barnes double down the left-field line.
“The throwing error by the shortstop and then we get a walk, and then we try a pickoff at second and it goes into center field,” said Delagarza. “Pretty soon it’s 4-0. That changes everything.”
Cory Ferguson suffered the loss for the Sluggers, who are 20-8 with two of those losses coming against Portland. He gave up two earned runs on five hits and four walks in six innings.
Zach McKinstry went 1-for-3 and scored Summit City’s only run after walking to lead off the top of the ninth inning.
Tinsley was 1-for-4 with a walk and two runs for the Rockets while Bowers went 2-for-3 and Barnes drove in a pair with his seventh-inning double.
Rockets’ manager Randy Miller was especially complimentary of Barnes, a Portland newcomer from Kokomo by way of Danville Community College. Having won 11 of its last 14 games after a .500 start, Miller said he believes his team is starting to round into form with tournament play just a few weeks away.
“Especially after the South Bend trip,” agreed Waters, referencing the team’s four-game sweep of the Mishawaka Brewers and South Bend Cardinals on June 28 and 29. “Once we did that, it was like the guys just gelled and we figured it out as a team.
“We’re just having fun as a team. That’s basically what you need to do to be successful. It’s starting to definitely come together.”[[In-content Ad]]