Paints get off the slide

Chillicothe 3, Butler 1

After dropping three straight games on their home turf, the Painst were going through a bummer of a losing streak, slipping and sliding as it were. However, this game on the road against the Butler Blue Sox was pretty much what the doctor had ordered for the Paints. The weather for this game was a bit iffy throughout the night, as towards the end of the game, it started to rain heavily for a brief time until the rain died down well enough for the teams to finish off the game.

For the game, Clayton Schulz made the start for the Paints. Once again, he did a good job holding his own, as he went 7 innings deep in his start. He only gave up one earned run while giving up only three hits and a pair of walks. He did another splendid job of striking out batters, as he got 6 K's recorded. Schulz, the youngest player on the Paints' roster, is making an impact for this team. If anything, you are never too young to be an ace for this starting rotation if you can be able to bring it just like Schulz, because there hasn't been much at all to really talk about negatively when it comes to his starts. Schulz was a senior in high school last year, and he signed on with a college (North Florida University) earlier this year. It's good to see Schulz succeeding, and as Paints manager Brian Mannino put it, growing up through the whole process.

Mark Williams and Chadd Steinborn made relief appearances for the Paints, and they pitched one inning each. Both of them did a swell job. No damage was done to the Paints' lead when they got into the game. They held the fort down and kept the Blue Sox batters at bay. I believe the pitchers are coming around again, and I think the slide had more to do with the shaky defense than it did with the pitching, but then again, nobody knows for sure. Anyway, things just went well for the pitching at Butler for this game. It's always nice to see stellar pitching out there on the mound.

Let's take a look at the offense for the Paints.

For the first time in a while, the offense for the Paints was present, and they did make some noise in this game. They made quite enough noise to get the Blue Sox rattled, and they got in three runs. Kyle Galbraith, once again starting in center field, had a triple. Shortstop Ben Allen was bumped up to second in the batting order, and he would get a single and an RBI off a sacrifice fly. DH Cory Maguire had a single. Kyle Gendron had two singles. Zach Frentsos also had two singles. Catcher Kris McDonough had a 2-RBI double. Left fielder Steven Mirizzi had a single. Overall, this was a much better showing for the offense that had gone missing for at least 13 straight innings, as they didn't get a run scored in that span.

Listening in on the radio broadcast commentated by Greg Bigam, I had heard that the ballpark at Butler featured two different types of surfaces. For the infield, it had a FieldTurf surface. For the outfield, it was just a normal, natural grass field. That isn't so common by baseball standards because you are either settling on one surface or the other when you are setting up your ballpark. Only on rare occasions, and in this case it makes sense, do you improvise and use two surfaces at once for your playing field. Personally, I have no problem with this. It may not look so appealing to others, but I think it does the job. In fact, it is interesting that you have to deal with two surfaces because players have to make adjustments.