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MINOOKA – Any pitcher appreciates run support.
But Minooka went a little overboard for its pitcher Zane Caves on Tuesday, as the Indians put up back-to-back seven-run innings to start the game leading to a 16-0, four-inning victory over Plainfield North.
“I mean, this team, we just hit the ball everywhere,” Caves said. “Everybody is always doing their job and getting timely hits up and down. As a pitcher, it is very relaxing knowing you can go out there, throw strikes, and that’s it.”
In his defense, Caves hasn’t needed much support. He showed off why against Plainfield North, allowing just one hit while striking out six in a two-plus-inning effort. With such a healthy lead, Minooka elected to remove Caves early in case he might be needed later in the week.
“We’ve got three great starting pitchers,” Minooka coach Jeff Petrovic said. “I mean, [Brayden] Zilis has a 0.50 ERA over the last two years, and Zane is closing in on that. So you know when you can roll those guys out there, you’ve got to feel great as a team.”
Minooka (23-2, 8-0 SPC West) felt good from the outset in this one.
After Caves stranded two Plainfield North (16-10, 4-4) runners in the first, the Indians settled in for the first of two very long innings.
The common thread was free passes. Minooka coaxed four walks out of Tigers pitchers in the first and three more in the second, and when coupled with some less than spectacular defensive play from Plainfield North, things snowballed quickly.
“You have to be able in high school baseball to accept your walks,” Petrovic said. “And we’ve done a really good job with that. We have a lot of guys up and down our lineup that have more walks than they do strikeouts. And that’s a very interesting stat, working your way into good hitters’ counts and picking good pitches to hit.
“So I like where we are at right now.”
Minooka now is firmly in the driver’s seat in the SPC West Conference race, but Petrovic is quick to point out that his team doesn’t intend to take anything for granted as they continue to build toward what they hope is a deep postseason run.
“They [Plainfield North] didn’t make a couple of plays, and that forced them into some big innings,” Petrovic said. “We capitalized on a couple of mistakes, and our guys are starting to swing the bats a lot better, and we continue to get good pitching.
“We’ve got to keep grinding away. We’re getting close to the postseason, and you’ve got to try to make every game feel like that. We have to keep working on the things we need to do to get better to make sure we can make some kind of a postseason run.”