Wingnuts beat Lemurs, stay alive

Wingnuts starting pitcher Tim Brown said there is no such thing as a simple win in the playoffs. But the Wingnuts took a minimalist approach on Saturday night, defeating Laredo 4-3 at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

Wichita trails in the American Association first-round best-of-five series 2-1 and plays Game 4 on Sunday night at home. After dropping two games in Laredo while being outscored 16-4, the Wingnuts discovered on Saturday that it doesn’t take a superhuman effort to beat the Lemurs.

Brown pitched seven strong innings, retiring the final 10 batters he faced. The Wingnuts took advantage of shaky Laredo pitching to score just enough runs, as Laredo left the tying run at second base in the ninth and just missed a go-ahead two-run homer.

“I don’t think any win is simple in the playoffs,” Brown said. “Just a complete team effort, great defense all night. (Catcher John) Nester did a fantastic job as always back there. Taking extra bases, defense, offense – everything just came together. Now we’ve got to put that together again (Sunday).”

It didn’t take long for the teams to reverse roles on Saturday. With a commanding series lead, Laredo was chattering from the dugout before the game began, and the Lemurs’ exuberance grew after they took a 1-0 first-inning lead after five pitches.

The Wingnuts finally discovered some swagger while scoring three runs in the second inning. The second started with a bouncing single up the middle by Andy LaRoche and didn’t get much more flashy from there, as the Wingnuts walked twice, got hit once, and were boosted by softly hit RBI singles from Harrison Kain and Nick Van Stratten.

“We’ve been relaxed this whole time,” LaRoche said. “The second game (a 4-1 loss) was kind of bad luck for us, we gave up a few runs and things that we shouldn’t have. …We were all loose before the game and everything. We’re just here to have fun. From now on, everything is just a bonus for the rest of the season.”

Laredo was methodically demoralized by Brown’s in-game adjustments. Each of the first five batters put either the first or second pitch in play, and though the Lemurs scored from that aggressiveness, Brown eventually used it against them.

There were fewer first- or second-pitch outs as Brown’s outing progressed, but he worked the edges of the strike zone and forced Laredo to swing at less optimal pitches. Laredo didn’t have a hit against Brown following Drew Martinez’s infield single in the fourth inning.

By the time the Wingnuts took the lead, and especially when Brown departed after seven innings, Laredo’s chatter had ceased.

“It’s one of those things, you can actually hear the silence from their dugout,” Brown said. “It lets you know that you’re doing your job. That’s the whole point – keep our dugout loud, keep the fans loud and keep them quiet.”

Brown hadn’t pitched from anything but the windup for four innings and his pitch count was a manageable 91 through seven, but Wingnuts manager Kevin Hooper went to the bullpen for the eighth.

Derek Eitel and Daniel Bennett combined for four strikeouts in the eighth but the batter who reached on a wild pitch, Phil Pohl, scored on Denis Phipps’ RBI single to cut the Wingnuts lead to 4-2.

Wichita’s sixth-inning insurance run became even more crucial in the ninth, when Pohl’s RBI double cut the Wingnuts’ lead further and put the go-ahead run at the plate. Ty Morrison nearly lived up to that distinction, flying out to the warning track in right-center field as closer Paul Smyth preserved the Wingnuts’ first win of the series.

“I hope we’re due for a little fireworks show offensively,” Hooper said. “But there’s never an easy win in the playoffs. We live to play another day, and that’s how it is right now.”

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 11:14 PM with the headline "Wingnuts beat Lemurs, stay alive."