Rockets can make waves in tourney

It doesn’t take a sportswriter or a baseball nut to come up with the following statement.
The Portland Rockets are good.
Portland, which begins the National Amateur Baseball Federation regional tournament at 6:30 p.m. tonight in Cincinnati, closed out its regular season on Sunday with a convincing doubleheader sweep of the Whitko Royals.
It marked the 10th and 11th consecutive victories for the Rockets (25-5), who also had a seven-game winning streak earlier in the season.
And, as they square off against the Yorkville Yaks — a team they swept in a doubleheader July 17 — this year’s team has the potential to make a trip back to the NABF World Series.
That’s because many players from that 2012 squad are still with the Rockets.
“We have the same core team,” said manager Randy Miller, noting that in the last six years Portland is 171-51. “We’ve won a lot of games. We are battle tested, we are battle approved and we’re anxious to represent Portland in the tournament.”
Mitch Waters, a 2002 Jay County High School graduate, is the hometown guy, the leader of the Rockets. The Portland native is the longest-tenured player, as he’s been with the team off and on since 2003.
The experience this core group has from the NABF World Series four years ago should be enough to get them back to the tournament.
“I?think having those veteran leaders hitting the ball as they are just trickles down completely to the entire team,”?Waters said. Portland has scored 11 or more runs in each of its last four games and 14 times this season, all of which were victories.
“(It) even helps our pitchers because they can pitch with a little more confidence knowing ‘Hey, I might have given one up in the first inning but my team is about to get three or four back.’
“I think it is giving everybody overall more confidence and less tension or pressure.”
Pitching, however, is what Waters sees as the biggest difference between this year’s squad and the 2012 World Series team.
South Adams High School graduate Dan Bollenbacher is the staff’s ace, and after him there are a host of capable, but not overly dominant, pitchers.
Coldwater, Ohio, native Derek Thobe will get the nod on the mound tonight, with lefty Craig Martin slated to start Friday’s game against the Oswego Cats. Garrett Scott is the projected starter for Portland’s final pool play game Saturday against the Cincinnati Mudcats. Miller said he is hoping to not have to use Bollenbacher in pool play, but if Portland should lose one of the seven-inning pool play games, the righty will be the next game’s starter.
There are two, four-team pools, with the top two in each advancing to “Championship Sunday,” a single-elimination tournament. Those are nine-inning contests, and Miller doesn’t want to have to burn Bollenbacher in a pool play game in hopes of using him later.
“I?know personally?I can’t do what I used to do, unfortunately,” said Waters, who saw his pitching duties diminished a bit this year. “But I do believe that a lot of the guys on the team are very capable of going in and doing the job.”
Miller and?Waters were both positive in describing Portland’s confidence level going into the tournament. Both expect nothing less than a World Series berth. And what will it mean for the team to make it back?
“We’re not a metropolitan. We are Portland,” Miler said. “It would be huge ... We think we are the team to beat. We have a little bit of swag and we’re not overconfident.
“We’re going into their house and we’re going to try to get things done.”
Rocket train, keep rolling.?Portland is counting on you.