Back-To-Back Shutouts

Chillicothe 0, Kalamazoo 5

Before the game, in the pregame interview, Paints manager Mark Mason mentioned the term "mentally retiring" while physically still trying. If you can get a feeling about what the Paints are doing at this point, it would probably have to be that way. The players on this team could have what it takes physically, but the mind is a tricky thing, by all means. If you're not mentally into it, you're going to struggle somehow.

The Chillicothe Paints lost to the Kalamazoo Kings, and this was the second time that the Paints have been shut out. The Paints have gone back-to-back putting up goose-eggs on the scoreboard. 20 consecutive innings full of them. The only batter that had a fairly good night was leadoff batter Nathan Faulkner, who had two singles. Zach Rodeghero had a single. Jeff Vincent had a stolen base. Joe Spiers had a single. Combine this 4-hit game with the 2-hit game against Traverse City, and you have just 6 hits altogether by the offense recently.

So with that, the pitching couldn't hold up after awhile. Andrew McCormick went 5 and 1/3 innings deep into his start and he gave up 3 runs, (not all of them were earned), on 7 hits allowed while walking a batter and striking out 4 batters. He also commited an error early in the game. Marty Wiesler pitched the rest of the game, giving up two hits and two runs while striking out just one batter.

I guess this would be familiar terrirtory for the Paints. The team just hasn't been successful at all on the road when you look at the whole body of work these last two seasons. It's nothing to write home about. It's become obvious ever since the homestand against River City around the beginning of August that mentally, the Paints are just losing control and focus. It seems as though they are distracted with everything that is going on; all the issues that involve them and that seems to be getting in the way of they should be doing, just going out to the field and having fun. No doubt, this is hard.