Kaleb Hill pitched 6.2 innings, giving up two runs, none earned, to give Ottawa a 5-2 victory over Brockton on Friday night at Ottawa Stadium. The Titans' record improves to 48-40, while the Rox's record drops to 34-50 in the season.
“I think overall pretty good baseball game,” Brockton Rox skipper Jerod Edmondson said. “Just a bad pitch gave up a two run homer that was the kind of the difference, and threw the ball away that gave up an extra run that we probably could’ve avoided. Offensively, I think we battled pretty good, we just didn’t get the big hit. We just haven’t been able to do that… we just got to do a better job in the big spots, I think, just sprinkle the nine hits around it and didn't execute when we needed to.”
Brockton starting pitcher Omar Melendez suffered his second loss of the season, bringing his record to 1-2. He pitched five innings, allowing seven hits and giving up five runs (four earned). He walked two batters and struck out two.
Ottawa starting pitcher Kaleb Hill secured his fourth win of the season, improving his record to 4-3. He pitched 6.2 innings, allowing seven hits and two runs (none earned), while walking one batter and striking out three. Shane Gray earned his twelfth save of the season, pitching two innings, giving up two hits, and striking out two batters.
The Rox struck first in the first inning when Austin White led off with a base hit. He advanced to second and third on an error by Hill and scored the game’s first run when Evan Giordano grounded out to the second baseman. The next two Rox hitters were retired to end the inning.
Brockton maintained a 1-0 lead until the bottom of the third, when Victor Creny led off with a base hit. After one out, he stole second base. With two outs, Jackie Urbaez was intentionally walked, and Jake Sanford delivered an RBI double to tie the score at one run apiece. Cristian Inoa then flew out to JR DiSarcina for the final out of the inning.
In the fourth, Ottawa took the lead for the first time in the game when Taylor Wright walked. With one out in the inning, Wright stole second base and advanced to third on a groundout by Kaiden Cardosa. He then scored on Creny's RBI single.
The Rox scored their second run of the game to tie the game at two runs apiece when DiSarcina and Jamey Smart hit back-to-back singles with one out. White reached first on an error by Hill, allowing DiSarcina to score. However, Smart was caught stealing, ending the inning.
Damone Hale hit a two-run home run in the sixth, giving Ottawa a 4-2 lead. The Titans added another run in the inning when Cardosa singled to center field, advanced to second on a sacrifice, and then reached third. He scored on an error by Brockton first baseman Jamey Smart.
“It was kind off the same thing the whole game with him. It had good fastball command but he didn’t had command on the offspeed pitches. He had the change up for a little bit, then he didn’t had the breaking ball, then got the breaking ball a little bit and lost on the change up, so for him to be effective he has to have them all or at least two or three to be able to mixed and match,” Edmondson said on Melendez. “So when he is messing up with the breaking stuff, they're going to take advantage of that. He wants to use the heater as the surprise pitch once he gets ahead of them with the other stuff. So he just didn’t had that and late gets into the sixth inning and some middle, middle misses, and they have seen them couple of times, so they are not going to miss those pitches after that.”
Brockton went quietly in the ninth inning. The Rox will look to bounce back tomorrow night when both teams meet again at 6:00 PM for the middle game of the three-game set.
