Baseball wins two of three for the week

By Bruce Karnick
Posted 5/11/23

The Raider baseballers had a busy week scheduled with four games in four days. Unfortunately, the rain on Saturday cancelled the game at Veterans Park, but that still gave the Raiders three other …

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Baseball wins two of three for the week

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The Raider baseballers had a busy week scheduled with four games in four days. Unfortunately, the rain on Saturday cancelled the game at Veterans Park, but that still gave the Raiders three other opportunities to move up in the Metro East standings. First on the list was North St. Paul on May 3rd, before Tartan on May 4th and Two Rivers on May 5th.

At North, Hastings jumped on the Polars pitchers to take a 9-0 lead by the top of the fourth. Mark Denoyer kept North’s batters confused the first time around the order, but allowed two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth before Aaron Vandehoef took over. Vandehoef allowed two more in the fifth and settled down nicely in the sixth before Matt Sherry closed the door in the seventh. By the time it was all said and done, eight out of nine Raiders batters had scored to give Hastings the 14-5 win.

Offensively Blake Vandehoef had a triple and two RBIs, Evan Nelson had a single, two doubles and three RBIs, Mitch Iliff had a single, two doubles and one RBI. Alex Hendrickson, Jack Seleski and Johnny Teigland each had an RBI. The only base runner that was left stranded each time he made it to base was Cade Kimmes, but he had two RBIs on the night.

Denoyer went four and two thirds of an inning striking out five with one earned run allowed. Vandehoef had one and a third innings striking out three and also allowing only one earned run. Sherry struck out two of the three batters he faced and allowed no runs.

The game against Tartan was statistically similar to the previous game, but it happened in a much different fashion. The first half inning of the game took nearly 45 minutes in which Hastings scored eight runs. The starting Tartan pitcher managed to get two outs but allowed seven of the runs before being pulled.

Let’s run through the first half inning of the game. Kimmes hit a single up the middle, stole second and moved to third on a passed ball all while the second batter, Hendrickson, was up. Hendrickson walked then Nelson hit a single scoring Kimmes and moving Hendrickson to third. The next batter struck out before Nelson stole second. Seleski was up and a passed ball scored Hendrickson and advanced Nelson to third. Then Seleski hit a sacrifice fly to left, scoring Nelson. Teigland was hit by pitch with the bases empty, Sawyer Tjomsland hit a single to left moving Teigland to second. The third passed ball of the inning moved each runner up a base and Blake Vandehoef, the eighth batter, eventually walked to load the bases.

That brought up the ever-dangerous Eddie Peine with the bases loaded. Peine faced a full count and ended up being walked to score Teigland for the RBI. Cade Kimmes came to the plate for his second time of the first inning and this time he crushed a triple to left center clearing the bases. With Hendrickson at the plate, another passed ball scored Kimmes for the final run of the inning. 13 total batters were faced in the first half of the first inning and Hastings had an 8-0 lead.

The rest of the game had more of the same: errors by Tartan, passed balls and not one but two home runs for the Raiders. The Raiders batted around three times by the third and led 9-1.  With one out in the fourth, Teigland put the ball over the left center field fence for his first home run of the season. Tjomsland hit a single and Blake Vandehoef flew out to left for the second out of the inning. That brought up Peine who did not want to be shown up by Teigland, so he hit a homer to almost the same spot, scoring two and giving the 12-1 lead.

The Raiders would go on to win 14-1 in five innings. Gavin Odman pitched the complete game striking out eight, walking one and allowing only one earned run.

Friday, Hastings travelled to Two Rivers looking to get even for the 7-0 thumping they took at home earlier in the season. The game played out to be exactly what was expected. The Raiders had a ton of energy to start the game and the bats continued to do well for Hastings. They entered the bottom of the third with a 4-0 lead. Two Rivers scored one in the bottom of the third, two in the fourth and one in the fifth to tie the game 4-4. Hendrickson pitched well enough to earn a win, but the offense stalled at the wrong time, several times throughout the game, stranding a total of 10 runners. Another key part of the game was letting the Warriors back in it with three errors.

With the score tied 4-4, the game went into extra innings, and it only took one extra frame for Two Rivers to secure the victory. The leadoff hitter was walked. The first out came on a bunt that moved the runner to third then all it took was a single up the middle to give the Warriors the sweep.

The Raiders have a game each day of the week from May 8th to May 12th. On May 10th, they travel to Simley, then on May 11th they travel to Hill Murray before returning home on the 12th. All three remaining games for the week are scheduled for a 4:30 start.