Wild One in Butler

Chillicothe 10, Butler 7

Venturing out to Pennsylvania once more, the Chillicothe Paints made their way to Butler, a city that's a bit north of Pittsburgh. They traveled to Pullman Park. The Pullman Park that many ballpark historians know isn't really present anymore, as there have been major rennovations made to the place for some time. FieldTurf has been installed on the grounds that have seen players like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle once play on. So while there's new surface on Butler's ballpark, baseball is still being played there, and you can be sure that the Prospect League is proud to have Butler, Pennsylvania as a member.

The Chillicothe Paints won their first game in the city of Butler on June 15th, 2009. Here, the Paints won doing everything they could to get as many runs crossing the plate. There were great plays made in this game by the Paints, and it was the type of game that saw many runs go by in a short span of time. The game featured a homerun hit by the Butler BlueSox and none hit by the Paints, but the visiting team didn't need any homers to pull away with the win here.

Rex Ingham of Ohio University made his first start for the Paints. He went 5 and 1/3 innings deep, giving up 5 hits, a walk, and 4 runs while throwing a wild pitch, but he managed to record 4 K's, looking fairly sharp even when he was under pressure by the opposing offense. He was pitching to his Bobcat battery mate Kris McDonough, who made the start back behind the plate. I suppose that they're teamwork together, communicating with each other helped a great deal because Ingham was pretty focused in this game in spite of the 4 runs given up.

Mark Williams came in relief of Ingham and put in 2 and 2/3 innings of work, giving up 3 hits with one of them being a solo homerun shot. Williams commited a balk but struck out a batter. He gave up 3 runs total. Chadd Steinborn pitched the final inning of the game, and did a good job of retiring the BlueSox side. Overall, I was impressed with the resiliency of our pitching. It wasn't perfect by any means, and that's to be expected in collegiate action, but when it comes to the traffic jams along the bases, our pitchers handled themselves well on the mound.

As for the offense, the Paints busted out 16 hits, which should be near a record for overall amount of hits for the Paints in a single game. Kyle Galbraith, making the start in center field, had an infield RBi single. Shortstop Ben Allen had two singles. Andy Brouse had a single and a triple. DH Andrew Marshall had a double and 3 RBI's overall. First baseman Cory Maguire went 3-for-4 in this game, hitting three singles and getting an RBI as well. Cory saw the ball pretty well in this game, as he was making solid contact with the ball. Matt Abro had a pinch hit single.

Eian Banks had two singles and a pair of RBI's. Kyle Gendron had a double and a stolen base. Kris McDonough had an infield single. Tim Krofcheck had a bunt infield single and a hit-and-run single while getting an RBI. The execution for the offense was just solid all around. The team didn't show off any power, but they got in so many base hits, and if you string many base hits together, then you would know that there's gonna be plenty of runs scored in that game. That's why I love small ball. I'm of the opinion that small ball makes a better impact, and it makes a louder statement in the game even though homeruns are fun to watch.

The Paints will do battle once again with the Slippey Rock Sliders as they travel back down to Jack Critchfield Park.