Prescott Pirates Baseball

With the Pirates in the midst of 9 games in 15 days, why not mix in a bachelor party.  It isn’t hot enough out, why not starve your liver of water.

Friday the Pirates played in the River Rumble, the annual game in Hastings for Rivertown Days.  Adam Barta squared off against Derrick Marks and they didn’t disappoint.  Both threw exception but in the end, Hastings walked off on the Pirates in the bottom of the 9th inning giving them a 2-1 victory.

Saturday was a full day for the home squad.  Spring Valley came to town and the bats woke up by scoring four in the first inning.  They would continue to hit the ball all over the park and eventually would run rule the Hawks in the 8th.  Nick Johnson started and pitched well, only giving up one run on a few hits, walking zero and striking out a handful.

Saturday night was a fun-filled evening at the Ross residence as most of the team celebrated Alex Ross’s bachelor party.  I don’t know who organized the bachelor party in the midst of 4.5 games in 5 days but he should be fired.

So we come to Sunday, Plum City is in town to not only play our regularly scheduled game, but also finish of 4.2 innings from the postponement in Plum City.  The Pirates finished off the first game winning 7-0 and took care of the second game 9-3.  The offense kept chugging  along, putting together great AB’s and squaring up a bunch of balls against the great Tony Garner.  Eric Monson picked up another W in the first game and Jesse Tollefson came in relief of Monson in the second game to pick up another W as well.

Sorry for the lack of statistics and in general, really piss poor reporting.  All I know is we got through the week going 3-1, the bachelor party was a success but most guys need a minor reprieve.

Prescott traveled to Cannon Falls to take on Bears in a non conference matchup.  Mark Erickson was on the mound for Prescott for his first start of the season and did well, throwing four shutout innings.  Eric Monson came in relief of Erickson and pitched three more scoreless innings before giving way to Billy Brookshaw.  Brookshaw allowed a single run in two innings of work.  Overall the pitching and defense were solid sans a few HBP’s.

Offensively the umpire kept the Pirates in check.  Oh wait, I am not supposed to write that but it was true.  He called two of our runners out at home that were clearly safe and it was apparent early he didn’t want to be there.  It was either that or he had sweat running in his glasses or there was some bombshell blondy in the stands because a monkey could have made those calls.

Either way, the Pirates were up 1-0 going into the 5th where they scored 5 runs with 4 straight two out hits.  Jake Hintz, William Brookshaw, Derrick Funson and Jared Powell all drove in runs.  I clearly can’t remember how we scored the final two runs as I am pretty sure we all had heat exhaustion by then, it was pretty foggy from the 7th inning on.

One final thing to note.  There was a magnificent double play turned by new combination of Powell and Funson in the middle, caveat being the MGR had to nicely scoop Powell’s errant throw.

River Rumble on Friday, game starts at 8.

Saturday, Hager City traveled to Prescott for a division clash.  Nick Johnson started on the hill for the Pirates and didn’t disappoint.  He threw five shutout innings, striking out 4 while giving up 4 hits.  Eric Monson came in relief of Johnson and picked up another save throwing four shutout innings.  The offense struggled again against Skeeter starter Elliot Foley.  He has had their number lately and until Chris Terrazas’s three run HR in the 8th, the offense was only able to manage three runs.  The final score was 6-0 which moved the Pirates to 8-1 over all in the SCVBL.

Sunday the Pirates played in Hudson against the River Rats.  Alex Ross had a big game going 4-5 with four rbi.  Ross drove in the first run of the game put the Pirates up 1-0 in the 3rd.  Hudson scored 2 in the bottom of the third but the Pirates scored five times in the top of the 4th to break the game open, putting the squad up 6-2.  Ross’s single in the 7th plated another run to make it 7-2, which was the final score.   Jesse Tollefson threw 7 innings giving up zero earned runs, 2 runs were charged to the umpire for being old and decrepid and not seeing an obvious touch of the bag at second, and Adam Barta came in the close up shop.

Overall another successful weekend with the Pirates now 9-1 in the SCVBL.  This week we have four games which should be interesting.  We have really fun games in Cannon Falls and Hastings and then home conference games vs Spring Valley and Plum City.  The whole squad will be on display, come out and catch a game.

Quote of the weekend.

Old Man umpire “I know they were strikes but I want to see the other team hit the ball.”

Prescott traveled down HWY 35 to play the Red Wing Aces, a team on a 10 game winning streak, just one shy of the Pirates.  We knew going in that it was going to be a good battle and it was.  Both teams played clean baseball but Red Wing scored 6 runs off of Adam Barta in the 3rd inning to erase a 2 run Pirate lead.  Prescott jumped back with 2 more runs on Jared Powell’s single to plate Jake Hintz and Billy Brookshaw.  Both teams traded runs as Jim French launched a solo shot to left field, but unfortunately for the Pirates, they didn’t push across anymore runs and lost 7-5.

Chris Terrazas had 3 hits, Jared Powell had 2 with 3 rbi, Billy Brookshaw had two hits and the aforementioned French hit a solo HR.  On a side note, the manager was spined like a deer with a bow and looked pretty embarrassing doing so.  Inside joke.

The Pirates traveled to Osceola on Friday and scored two runs in the first inning on Jim French’s two out, two run double. There wasn’t much offense after that on both sides as Osceola’s starter settled down and Pirate starter Adam Barta was on his game. Unfortunately for the Pirates, another storm rolled through Osceola and the game was postponed in the bottom of the 5th, three outs shy of a win. This is the second time this season we’ve had games postponed in the bottom of the 5th, the other was in Plum City.

Saturday we traveled to Hayward to face the Hawks, a rematch of last years regional final in which the Pirates won. The offense was on top of their game as we won 8-2 in a 7 inning affair. Nick Johnson and Chris Terrazas combined for 5 hits and Johnson picked up the Win throwing 5 innings, giving up two runs in the 5th. Jake Kuschke pitched two shutout innings in relief to close down the win.

Pirates face Ellsworth in a big game on Wednesday. On the mound will be Rob Mouton.

The Pirates entered the weekend with a 3-1 conference record and closed up shop Sunday afternoon at 6-1.  Friday we traveled to Hager City and the game started off well with a 4-run 1st.  There were some nice hits, a few misplays in the field to help us out and all of a sudden the squad was up quickly.  Things started to get hairy when starter Jesse Tollefson gave up 3 runs in the 5th.  Tollefson went 7 innings giving up the same number and was relieved by Eric Monson who closed the door for a two inning save.

Saturday Bay City came to town and the bats struggled to put together hits which kept the game close until the very end.  Rob Mouton started his first game for Prescott and was dominant.  He struck out 8 over 7 innings, walking 2 and not allowing a run.  Nick Johnson relieved Mouton and finished off the game with another Pirate 2 inning save.  There wasn’t a lot to talk about offensively.  Derrick Munsen had a big 2 out single that drove in the first run and Johnson’s groundout put the Pirates up 2.

Sunday the bats finally showed up giving our pitching corp a little breathing room.  We got the offense going right away in the first with consecutive with Chris Terrazas’s sac fly scoring Billy Brookshaw and Jared Powell’s sac fly scoring Brady Randolph.  Jim French then singled home Nick Johnson and the Pirates were up quickly 3-0.  Randolph and French each hit solo HR’s to make the score 5-0.  The score was 6-2 in the 8th when Randolph, Johnson and Terrazas each singled home runs to extend the lead to 9-2, the final score.

Overall the weekend was a success, the pitching was terrific and nobody pulled a muscle, something uncommon for the Pirates after three consecutive games.

On Saturday the Pirates played in River Falls for what has been a good rivalry over the years.  The Fighting Fish have had the upper hand on Prescott lately winning the last four.  Fortunately for Prescott, the bats stayed hot and Jesse Tollefson continues to roll.

Prescott scored three runs in the first inning off Fish pitch Scott Wells.  The Pirates sent 8 hitters to the plate in the first which set the tone for the rest of the game.  The Pirates continued all game to put together good ABs by consistently getting guys on base and constantly putting pressure on River Falls.  The squad did leave 19 guys on base which has to be some sort of record and Brian Johnson set team record by stranding 10 alone.  We had a good chuckle and moved on.  Jared Powell was 3-5 with 3 RBI and another HR, a solo shot in the 7th.

Jesse Tollefson was again the story of the game.  He gave up two earned runs over nine innings and threw the first Pirate CG of the year.  He also has ditched his 8th inning blues which again, was laughed about during and after the game.  It is fun to watch guys who know how to win by throwing strikes and hitting spots.

Sunday the Pirates traveled to Plum City to take on the Blues.  Unfortunately the game was suspended in the bottom of the 5th inning with the Pirates up 3-0.  The game will be resumed in Prescott on July 21st when Plum City comes to town.  Ben Krings had a two out hit in the 2nd to put the Pirates up 1-0.  Powell had two more hits as he plated the second run with a single and later scored on a wild pitch. Very impressive for someone who may have been over served the night before.