The Green Bay Bullfrogs lost an 11-6 game to Kenosha on June 5 (Rich Palzewic photo).
BY RICH PALZEWIC
CORRESPONDENT
GREEN BAY – Walks, walks and more walks.
That pretty much summed up the Green Bay Bullfrogs baseball game June 5 at Joannes Stadium in Northwoods League action.
Five Green Bay (3-5) pitchers combined for 15 walks and six wild pitches in an 11-6 loss to the Kenosha Kingfish (4-3).
“I really don’t know what to say except that if we don’t throw strikes we have no chance to win the game,” said Green Bay manager Kirk Shrider. “To some extent these guys haven’t gotten a lot of time pitching at their respective colleges, but to me it’s more about focus … what are you doing prior to getting here. We are making suggestions to them, but they have to use what we tell them. That game was embarrassing. When we threw strikes we did fine.”
All but three Kenosha players had six plate appearances during the game. Leadoff man Connor Doyle had five walks and reached base all six times.
Every time the Bullfrogs went ahead or scored some runs while trailing, they weren’t able to build on that.
“It’s very difficult for a defense to stay mentally into the game when we are not throwing strikes,” Shrider added. “The tempo and everything starts to go. It’s a fine line … we are trying to let guys work through things out there on the mound instead of throwing them a life preserver. I think we are too worried about throwing the living crud out of the ball instead of pitching. I don’t want to put it all on the pitching, but it’s not been good. We need to have some pride.”
Positively, the Bullfrogs managed nine hits and played solid defense with only one error.
Cooper Morrison (UC-Davis) was 3-for-4 at the plate, while Blaise Maris (Florida Tech) had two hits. Jake Munoz (San Francisco), Leo Perez (Texas A&M Corpus Christi), Eddy Gonzalez (Incarnate Word) and Rudy Aguilar (St. John’s) had the other base knocks.
After trailing 1-0 going into the bottom of the first inning, Green Bay tallied a pair of runs when Maris scored on a wild pitch and Tate Soderstrom (Arizona) crossed the plate on a Morrison double.
After leading off the fourth with his second double of the game, Morrison scored on an error to put the Bullfrogs up 3-2.
Kenosha sent nine batters to the plate in a three-run fifth and never trailed again.
Maris had an RBI single to score Jake Finkbeiner (Wayne State) in the seventh, before Green Bay put up a fight in the eighth.
Aguilar knocked in a run with single, but with the ‘Frogs trailing 8-6, they stranded runners at first and second to end the inning.
The Kingfish put any hopes of a comeback away in the ninth by scoring three runs.
Green Bay is next at home on Thursday, June 7, when they host the Lakeshore Chinooks in a 6:35 game at Joannes.
Former Milwaukee Brewers player Cecil Cooper will be making an appearance.
Box Score
Kenosha: 101 031 113 – 11 8 3
Green Bay: 200 100 120 – 6 9 1