The Green Bay Bullfrogs won a 5-0 game over Fond du Lac June 27 at Joannes Stadium (Rich Palzewic photo).
BY RICH PALZEWIC
CORRESPONDENT
GREEN BAY – Eddy Gonzalez continued his hot hitting, Colby Morris pitched seven strong innings and the Green Bay Bullfrogs won a 5-0 game over Fond du Lac in the nightcap of a home-and-home Northwoods League doubleheader June 27 at Joannes Stadium.
Gonzalez (Incarnate Word), who is 15-for-29 in his last seven games, had three hits and an RBI, while Morris (Middlebury College) gave up just four hits and struck out eight to pick up his first win of the season.
“I came here to Green Bay looking to get better and face better competition,” said the junior Morris, who has been the No. 1 pitcher for Middlebury (Vermont) the last three years. “These lineups are a whole lot more loaded than what I face in D3. I faced (Fond du Lac) about 10 days ago, so I pretty much had the same game plan … get them off balance and get some soft contact. I executed it well and benefited from a big strike zone.”
Morris lowered his ERA to an impressive 2.57, which leads the team.
Gonzalez has raised his batting average nearly 100 points during his hot streak, something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Green Bay manager Kirk Shrider.
“Eddy has been raking it,” said Shrider. “It all kind of started when he sat for a game about a week ago because he needed the rest – it’s done wonders. Even in his last at bat (yesterday), he had a very quick bat on his hit.”
Gonzalez was 3-for-5 earlier in the day in a 4-2 loss in Fond du Lac, so he ended the doubleheader with six hits in 10 at bats.
The ‘Frogs (11-19) got all the runs they needed in a four-run first.
Green Bay got an Adrian Damla (UC Irvine) two-run double, a run-scoring single by Blake Nelson (Michigan) and an RBI groundout by Riley Mihalik (Rider) to jump ahead early. In all, 10 batters came to the dish in the inning.
Gonzalez added a run-scoring single in the fifth to close the scoring.
“It’s always nice to jump ahead early,” Shrider noted. “Fond du Lac (17-12) is a good team, but Colby pitched a great game. It wasn’t his velocity that won him that game, but his ability to change speeds off his fastball. His changeup was really good … he threw it in some big situations and then backed it up with another. Playing two games in a day with all the travel we had is not easy, but the other team had to go through it as well; but being the away team like we were in game one is a tougher challenge than being the home team.”
Nelson had three hits, while Blaise Maris (Florida Tech) added a pair.
The only excitement for the Dock Spiders came in the sixth inning when manager Zac Charbonneau got ejected for arguing a call at first.
Game 1: The Bullfrogs collected 12 hits in Fond du Lac, but 13 runners left on base spelled doom.
Trailing 4-2 in the seventh, Green Bay had a golden opportunity to make some noise after loading the bases with nobody out, but three straight outs by the Dock Spiders put an end to the threat.
“We got a lot of hits, but just couldn’t get one in the clutch when we needed it,” added Shrider. “In the seventh after we loaded the bases, we had a weak grounder and then two consecutive strikeouts to end it. The same thing happened to us the last time we were there.”
Up next: The ‘Frogs hit the road for three straight before returning home on Sunday with a 1:05 game against Madison.
After the three-game road trip, Green Bay will play eight of its next nine game at Joannes.
Box Score
Fond du Lac: 000 000 000 – 0 4 0
Green Bay : 400 010 00x – 5 10 0