Friday, June 4, 2010

Paints Hang On To Win

Chillicothe 6, Lorain County 3

The Chillicothe Paints returned to the home ballpark of their Ohio rivals the North Coast Knights...scratch that, the team in Lorain have changed their team name to the Lorain County Ironmen, and that team name wasn't just thought up on the fly, but more on that later. The Paints returned to the Pipe Yard and they played a solid baseball game against the Ironmen. The Paints did win, but towards the end it got a bit tight. I guess there's nothing like getting used to your surroundings as a Summer Collegiate baseball player. It's only the second game of the season and the only hiccup worth mentioning was the bullpen.

Eric Heckaman made the start for the Paints, and being only one of three returning Paints from last season, Heckaman has a better grasp of what to do in a Summer Collegiate league. He did a pretty good job in this game as he would go on to pitch six innings of baseball, giving up six hits, a walk and two runs for the night. Eric didn't record a strikeout but he didn't need to while he was in there. Ryan Robertson from Rio Grande University pitched an inning of relief and he did record two strikeouts. Jared Messer from Malone University pitched an inning of baseball and he had the most trouble of all the pitchers for the Paints, but he did enough to keep the Ironmen down. He gave up three hits, a walk and one run, but the Paints had one spare run in their pocket so Messer was okay, striking out a batter in the process. Keenan White pitched the ninth inning and shut down the Ironmen, striking out a batter.

Now for the offense, centerfielder Cody Elliott had a good night, getting two singles while one RBI and one stolen base tagged along with his stats. First baseman Ian Nielson also had a good night, and he only needed one hit to make his statement. He went deep for a 3-run homerun in the third inning that gave the Paints what they needed to win this game. Right fielder Jeff Holm had an RBI single. Third baseman Jeff Corfman had two singles. Catcher Brandon White, another one of the returning three Paints players from last year, had two singles and an RBI. Shortstop Ryan McMillin had a single. A few runs that were scored in this game were unearned, so that will explain why you won't find some RBI's in this review.

One thing I do have to note about the season that's going to unfold would be the odd number of teams once again. As I've mentioned before months ago, the Prospect League now has 15 teams, a number that's up from 11 last year. An odd number of teams means an oddly formed schedule, so there will be times where your team will be away for some time and then all of sudden they'll come back home and play at home for some time, and then there will be times where numerous one-game and two game sets will pop up, making the overall grind of the season pretty interesting, in my oopinion. Odd schedules aren't a bad thing at all, and in fact, I quietly like odd schedules, but it would be helpful to have an even number of teams in the future.

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