Eighth for eighth

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Zach Tanner stepped into the batter’s box having gone 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in his previous three tries.

The Rockets trailed the Panthers 5-1, and had runners on second and third with one out.

Sitting in the dugout near the on deck circle, Tanner’s teammate Colin Affolder looked to his left and uttered two sentences.

“We’re going to get one here,” he said. “Tanner’s going to hit one.”

Tanner lofted the second pitch he saw from Panther pitcher Kyle DeKoninck over the fence in left field for a three-run home run and TJ Lindstrand broke a slump of three consecutive strikeouts to drive in the eventual game-winning run as the Portland Rockets scored six runs in the eighth inning and held off a potential rally in the ninth Wednesday to beat the Fort Wayne Panthers 6-5 at Portland Memorial Park’s Runkle-Miller Field.

“Anything he does is just amazing to me,” said Portland Rockets manager Randy Miller, whose team has won eight straight games after claiming the Firecracker Classic tournament championship over the weekend in Fort Wayne for the second year in a row. “He is in scoring position when he steps into the plate. I think that’s his eighth home run. It was a moonshot. It couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Miller’s right.

Portland had eight hits through the first seven innings but couldn’t break through on the scoreboard. The Rockets (16-7) left a man on third base in the fourth inning, and had another cut down at the plate on a bit of a baserunning error in the home half of the seventh.

That play led to a kerfuffle in the Portland dugout which led to one player getting ejected and another leaving the field.

And when Tanner stepped to the plate in the home half of the eighth inning, he forgot about what happened in his three other at bats and the incident moments earlier.

“You have to put it behind you and move on,” said Tanner, who was the team’s designated hitter. “I know I struck out twice and my next at bat I popped out on the first pitch.

“Guy on second and third, I thought they were going to throw around me, but if you throw something (on the inside part of the plate) that’s going to be the pitch. He threw one in and that was the pitch.”

After Tanner’s blast made it 5-4 Fort Wayne, Chris Miller reached on an error and chugged his way to third on a single from Affolder. Cody Krumlauf, who had two hits already, hit an opposite field single to right to score Miller to tie the game.

Tristen Becker loaded the bases with a walk, and Linstrand — he went down swinging in the third and watched a called third strike in the fifth and seventh frames — popped out to right field to score Affolder as the eventual game-winning run.

“He struck out three times and made an adjustment,” Miller said. Lindstrand was greeted with high-fives from his teammates as he got back to the dugout.

“The thing we had earlier in the game, I think that kind of gave us momentum,” Tanner said. “It gave us a boost of energy. We got one run, that that three-run homer gave us four. We’re down one, we got one out (in the eighth inning). Plenty of time to do something.”

As the Rockets led 6-5, Fort Wayne nearly tied the game in the top of the ninth. It got the first two on base with an error and a bunt single. Noah Friemuth popped a bunt attempt to Krumlauf behind the plate before a fielder’s choice and a stolen base gave the Panthers two runners in scoring position.

But Portland reliever Chase Ruiz blew three straight pitches by Tyler Prince to notch the save and preserve the Rockets’ winning streak.

Fort Wayne touched up 2016 Jay County High School graduate Chandler Jacks for a pair of runs in the second inning and one more in the third. Prince and Justen Reece hit back-to-back doubles to start the second, and Steven Paulus knocked in Prince for the game’s first run. MikHail McCowin’s sacrifice fly made it 2-0 and Prince hit an RBI single an inning later to put the Panthers out front, 3-0.

An error to lead off the fifth inning off Rocket reliever Jimmy West helped Fort Wayne score two unearned runs for a 5-0 lead. Prince and Reece each had RBIs off West, who ended up recording the win in four innings of relief.

“The overcoming adversity part of it really helped our team,” Tanner said. “It gave us a little bit of momentum and a little bit of an edge knowing no matter what, we can still come back and have a chance.”