TIGERS SPLIT
The Tiger Train posted a come-from-behind victory Sunday night at Arlington, 7-3, and have won four of five as they enter the stretch run (ahem). Last Thursday, the locals hit the road and were upended at Victoria, 3-0.
Tomorrow night (Thursday) the Tigertown warriors venture to Gaylord for a 7:30pm CCL affair. After a weekend of stampeding the beef stand at BBQ Days, the regular season concludes next week with this triumvirate of games: Tuesday at St. Peter, Wednesday Delano at home, and Thursday Chaska at home. All times are 7:30pm. The CCL-White playoffs begin on Monday, July 26, where the Tigers are expecting to open up at home.
Continuing to highlight the improvements / changes at Tiger Park, you may not have noticed that the flagpoles are actually located in right-centerfield, in play, 435 feet away. It is a throwback to days of old and similar to Houston’s Minute Maid Park, minus the hill. It’s so spacious, there might even be enough room for Belle Plaine’s next portable classroom. (And if we paint it dark, it could make a great hitter’s background...)
Finally, if you’re still looking for the BBQ Days coin, fear not. Call Tiger sleuth Zip Zellmann—he knows where it is.
BP 0 @ Victoria 3 (Thursday, July 8th)
With the 4th of July layoff, the Tiger Train had been out of commission for eight days, and it showed—hitting-wise, primarily, as the visitors scratched just four hits. El Tigro also had a patchwork lineup as seven of the Tiger Twenty were missing. Yet in the end, the primary reason for BP’s struggles was the right wing of pitcher Brad Everett, who hurled the complete game shutout. Before that, El Tigre had not been whitewashed since June 10, 2003 at Chaska (an 8-0 loss).
Prodigal Son Mike Murphy got the nod on the hill, his second appearance of the season. Murphy looked as sharp as ever through the first three innings, yielding but two singles as the game stood scoreless. With two gone in the fourth, a base hit already scored one when left-fielder Dan “Midget Lover” Weldon nailed runner Ryan Cattell at the plate, with Pat Schultz applying the nifty tag.
In the fifth however, the Tigers failure to turn a double play resulted in two runs coming in—one on the play itself, and one when the throw from second skipped past first baseman Pat Moriarty, making it 3-0 Vics. Murphy finished the fifth with his third strikeout, closing the book on Kelner for the day.
Zip Zellmann came on to chuck two innings of scoreless relief, and Jonny Schulz followed suit with a scoreless eighth of his own. Just one minor detail—the Grr Train was scuffling with the bats against Everett, who recorded eight of the final twelve outs via strikeout. He finished with eleven on the game and walked only one.
An old acquaintance was “re-lit” when Tiger Jeff Witt had the chance to catch up with Vics manager Mike Poppitz after the game, who once drafted Witt years ago. These two remind of a simpler time in baseball and are a dying breed.
BP 7 @ Arlington 3 (Sunday, July 11th)
The much ballyhooed (in this column only) battle for the Red Helmet set the backdrop, as Dan Huber took to the mound against A’s right-hander Mike “Cy” Spurling. The hosts struck first and second blood with single runs in those respective innings. Meanwhile, Spurling faced the minimum number of Tigers the first time through the order as Belle Plaine’s only hit—a Pat Moriarty single—was quickly erased on a Dan Weldon double play ball.
In the fourth however, Arlington’s defense began to fall apart like a stale taco. The Tigers would score three times on a hit and two errors. Again, it was Moriarty with an RBI single, continuing his late-season resurgence.
The A’s would nip Danny Huber for one more run before he departed after five, making it 3 a side. In the sixth, El Tigre got Huber into the win column when they posted a similar inning to the fourth: two runs on one hit and two A’s errors. Maybe they should be the Arlington E’s instead of A’s (just kidding—but they were charged for six errors in the game).
On the other side of this coin were the Tigers, who played errorless baseball, but more specifically, shortstop Adam Hoffman. He turned in a bevy of throw-on-the-run plays and to no one’s surprise, made every one. In fact, you could say that Hoffman is the Doug Mientkiewicz of the Tigers (ouch, sorry Hoff—you know I meant well).
Again in this ballgame, the unheralded Tiger bullpen continued to put out, with four innings of shutout relief. Freshman sensation Jonny Schulz, who got the save, and tingling sensation David Feldt both worked a pair of scoreless frames. The key moment of the game was in the seventh, when after Feldt loaded the bases on a double, a walk, and a hit-by-pitch, the Tigers turned a timely 5-2-3 double play.
This page was created and maintained by Nick Kornder, Sports Information Director at Northern State University. The views and ideas on this page are that of the author, and not those of Northern State University.