NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Mavericks outfielder Yusei Uzawa celebrates after his bases-clearing triple as part of a six-run, sith inning in the Mavs' 8-1 win Friday at Athletic Park over the Brooks Bombers.
Medicine Hat News
A pitchers duel Friday at Athletic Park saw the Medicine Mavericks deal the heavy blow for the win.
A seven-run sixth inning propelled the Mavs 8-1 over the visiting Brooks Bombers, getting the Mavs back in the win column to kick-off a three-game homestead. Medicine Hat came into play Friday off an 11-10, walkoff loss Thursday at Moose Jaw to the Miller Express.
Head coach Jonathon Thornhill liked how his team battled through a slow start before capitalizing offensively.
“We’ve had maybe two games where we’ve had a couple slow starts, tonight with Johnny (Vulcano) in the dugout, you could hear him several times saying, ‘come on guys, this one, let’s scrape one here and build off of that,'” Thornhill said. “That energy, it translates, whether it’s on the field, he wasn’t out there with the day off, but it’s it didn’t feel like he had the day off. He was still engaged with everybody. So you have guys like that doing it continuously and knowing what they can do in each other too, and believing one another.
“Those guys who go to the plate, and have no doubt in their mind to get a job done. So we took advantage of the mistakes they made a couple of times.”
There were a combined four hits through the first three innings of the game as Mavs’ starter Xander Roberts and Brooks’ pitcher Brian Walters were working efficiently. Medicine Hat received some stellar defence to end the third inning as centre fielder Jeremy Freeman Jr. scaled the wall to bring back a home run to keep the game tied at 0-0 through three frames. It was an effort that impressed his pitcher.
“We played against each other in college, I’ve seen him make crazy plays after crazy plays, so it was big time to be on this end of it this time,” Roberts said.
An inning later, the Bombers made good on their name and grabbed the first lead of the game.
First baseman Wyatt Ormonde belted a home run in the fourth inning, his second blast of the season, to put Brooks ahead 1-0. That was the lone blemish for Roberts who held the one hit after the home run, three total, across 6.2 innings of work for the win. He struck out seven in his second start of the season.
“I was just trying to get first pitch strikes,” Roberts said. “Earlier in the game I got into a little bit of trouble when I wasn’t throwing first pitch strikes, had a few balls to the wall hit off that, but really dialling in on the first pitch, strikes, that’s what helped out.”
The Mavs picked up their pitcher an inning later with outfielder Yusie Uzawa driving in a run with a single up the middle, tying the game up at 1-1. The Chiba, Japan product would step up in a big moment an inning later.
Brooks pulled Walters after five innings, he held the Mavs to five hits and the lone run, walking two batters and striking out five. They took advantage of the change and put up seven runs in the sixth inning for the win.
Aaron and Adam Vulcano each walked, with the bases getting loaded a batter later when Blake Dale made it to first base safely on his sacrifice bunt attempt.
Catcher Nate King, looking for the big fly with the bases loaded to blow open the game, brought in a run with a hit by pitch RBI for the 2-1 lead. Right Fielder Micah Dvorak knocked in a run with a sacrifice fly to left field and Freeman Jr. knocked in another with a single to the left side, keeping the bases loaded.
That’s when the lefty batting Uzawa, took a 2-1 pitch to deep left field, and flew around the bases before sliding into the third for the bases-clearing triple to make it a 6-1 Mavs’ lead. Before his RBI single in the fifth, Uzawa had two straight line-outs to centre field, setting him up for the bigger swing later in the game.
“That’s baseball, that’s why we love and hate it,” Thornhill said. “His first two at bats he had a good approach to the left side, the left side of the field and hit them right at the left fielder, those are great swings. He didn’t let that change or dictate his emotion going on in his next ABs. He did a very good job of that and it came up in a big spot. To hit a base, clearing triple, gets everybody fired up.
“It changes what we do pitching wise, we save (A.J.) Doll, don’t have to use him today and we got to save him for tomorrow. It also extends those things too, so it does a lot when guys are able to do that.”
Mavs’ designated hitter Tyler Vanneste capped off the inning with a two-run blast to right field, his third home run of the season, making it an 8-1 Mavs’ lead
Roberts started the seventh inning, recording two outs before Ryan Dexter took over on the mound. He worked the final out and all of the eighth inning, surrendering two walks with two strikeouts. Diego Centella finished the game off in the ninth with a pair of strikeouts for the Mavs’ league-leading seventh win of the season.
They outhit Brooks 9-3 and were error-less, the Bombers had one defensive blunder.
The Mavs (7-2) are back at Athletic Park on Saturday for the second of the three-game home stand and the first of a two-game set against the Weyburn Beavers. First pitch is set for 7:05 p.m.
