Winnipeg beats Wingnuts, forces deciding game for league title

More than 1,000 fans at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium Sunday night reveled in the drama of a baseball game in which the home team had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth.

Wingnuts manager Pete Rose Jr., the leader of that home team, couldn’t relate.

Rose hung on every pitch, just in a different way. And after the Wingnuts lost Game 4 of the American Association championship series 5-4 to Winnipeg, Rose was especially unwilling – albeit in a light-hearted tone – to express appreciation for the aesthetics.

“Maybe entertaining for you guys,” Rose said to the assembled media. “But we’ll wait for another day.”

Winnipeg tied the best-of-five series 2-2, and Game 5 is at Monday night at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. Each team is looking for its second championship – Winnipeg won in 2012, the Wingnuts two years later.

Rose didn’t leave discouraged, and he had plenty of evidence for a positive outlook. The Wingnuts had the go-ahead run at the plate three times in the final three innings after using the sixth inning to trim a 5-1 Winnipeg lead to one-run advantage.

Wichita can use its top two pitchers, Tim Brown and Alex Boshers for Game 5, and the bullpen, while hardly rested, has been effective in relief of struggling starters the last two nights. The Wingnuts are balancing the even-keel mentality that got them to a decisive game with the urgency that such a situation necessitates.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Rose said. “We’ve got the whole offseason to rest, so I’m sure we’ll be ready to go.”

The theme of the series’ two games in Wichita is that the Wingnuts have a knack for avoiding catastrophe.

In Saturday’s 7-5 win, the Wingnuts made three errors in an inning and allowed four unearned runs, but they played efficiently in the other eight innings and never trailed after scoring five times in the first.

On Sunday, Winnipeg scored four times in the top of the first, with home runs by Maikol Gonzalez and Reggie Abercrombie. Wichita starter Tyler Kane barely made it past the first inning, but he ended up going into the fifth, when Winnipeg scored its only other run.

“It starts with Pete,” Wingnuts outfielder T.J. Mittelstaedt said. “Those innings are going to happen. We’re not going to let it happen again because when you start trying to play harder and make sure it doesn’t happen, that’s when it does. We’ve got plenty of guys who are relaxed.”

The Wingnuts had Winnipeg starter Edwin Carl on the ropes during the middle innings. Wichita scored in the fourth on two hits and a walk, then left runners on second and third in the fifth. Carl’s final pitch landed beyond the right field wall, a leadoff home run by Mittelstaedt in the sixth.

Wichita continued its rally against Winnipeg’s bullpen. Nick Van Stratten doubled with one out, then Harrison Kain hit his third homer of the postseason, a two-run shot that cut Winnipeg’s lead to 5-4.

“That’s just us not panicking,” Mittelstaedt said. “We know we can hit.… The middle of the lineup is going to be fine. The top of the order, if we get those guys going like they were the whole season, we’re good.”

The Wingnuts had runners reach scoring position in four of the final five innings and left 10 on base for the game. Christian Stringer struck out with runners on first and second in the eighth and Matt Chavez struck out to end the game following Mittelstaedt’s two-out single.

“(Chavez) won the batting title,” Rose said. “That at-bat right there just lets you know he’s human. We all strike out, we all end games, we all make errors. It’s how you respond from them, and he’s done it before.

“I can pick nine of them that I’d want up in that situation. Actually 11 of them, with two guys on the bench, that I’d love to have up there with the bases loaded. That’s the kind of confidence I have in my guys.”

This story was originally published September 18, 2016 at 9:24 PM with the headline "Winnipeg beats Wingnuts, forces deciding game for league title."