By Cameron Boon
WEBSTER, N.Y. — In his two previous appearances, both at home, Connor Hamilton (Cedarville) has had numerous family members in attendance, pitched a quality outing, but got handed the loss. The third time was the charm as Hamilton wowed the Basket Road crowd, family in attendance again, as he dealt a four-hit shutout of the Wellsville Nitros, leading the Rochester Ridgemen to an 8-0 victory on Thursday night in a New York Collegiate Baseball League Western Division matchup.
Hamilton struck out only three batters, but induced 13 groundball outs, and was able to throw a first-pitch strike to 24 of his 32 batters faced in the game.
“One word: Impressive,” Rochester manager Brady James said after the game. It was Hamilton’s first win of the season, and the third straight time that he has allowed three earned runs or less in the game. “I had all of my stuff and was hitting my spots,” Hamilton said of his performance.
“I just want to give my team a chance to win,” he added.
He did more than that, as the Rochester offense was firing on all cylinders, putting up eight for the first time since an 8-2 victory over the Genesee Rapids on June fifth.
The Ridgemen also were able to put eight hits together, three of them being for extra bases.
“Good things happen when you hit the ball hard,” James said.
One player who was hitting the ball very hard was Matt Emge (Pittsburgh), even though it shows on the stat sheet that he was 1-4. He roped a sacrifice fly to get the Ridgemen on the board in the first, and then blew the door open in the bottom of the second, when he cleared the bases with a three-run triple to the right-center field gap.
“The last couple of games coming in I’ve been really spotty with at-bats, so it felt good to hit the ball hard again,” Emge said.
After the sacrifice fly in the bottom of the first, Rochester was able to put up a five-spot in their half of the second, completed by Emge’s triple. Holt Davis (UAB) scorched a grounder down the left field line that scored Will Bass (New Mexico JC) and making it 2-0. Andy Santana (Geneva College) then scored two batters later, when Larry Vidaurre’s (Nyack) grounder couldn’t be handled by shortstop Cameron Balego (Mercyhurst NE) as he slipped on the turf field. Emge doubled the lead to 6-0 and their was no looking back for neither Rochester, nor Hamilton, their star of the evening.
“I feed off of their run support,” the Gates-Chili High School graduate said. “So I went out in the third and put my foot on the gas pedal.”
Wellsville had five baserunners on the night, and only one reached third when the Nitros had runners at the corners with one out in the top of the third. Hamilton never lost his composure, though. He got Balego to ground into a double play and end the threat.
“I tip my hat to Hamilton,” Wellsville manager Pat Leipold said after the game.
Rochester added two runs to its lead in the fifth. James called the suicide squeeze and Santana laid down the bunt perfectly, and the throw was errant, so Alex Storaci (Blue Mountain CC) scored easily and Santana flew over to third base. He then scored two pitches later on a wild pitch.
Hamilton finished the game with 96 pitches, throwing an astounding 70 strikes.
“You’re going to get outs if you throw strikes,” he said. His ERA dropped to 1.44, which is good for sixth in the NYCBL among pitchers who have started a game.
The Ridgemen and Nitros will play the final three games of the set over the weekend, with Friday and Sunday taking place in Wellsville while Saturday’s game will be played in Webster.
“We just have to ride the momentum,” James said of his team, which is now above .500 again at 7-6.
The Nitros are on the other end of the spectrum in the Western Division, sitting at 4-11 and really struggling having lost seven of their last eight.
“We need to mentally prepare and re-focus for this weekend,” Leipold said. “Our record doesn’t show how well we’ve played,” indicating that many misfortunes, including errors, haven’t gone their way at the one-third mark of this season.
Rochester now enters a critical part of their season, as they play 15 games in a row, including a nine-game road trip beginning with that Sunday game in Wellsville. They will then travel to Genesee for three, to Olean for a pair and Hornell for two before heading back home next week.
“We knew coming into this stretch that we’d need to start getting momentum going and we did that tonight,” Emge said.
Fitting that family is the mantra for the night, as his host family was in attendance as well to see the Beaver Falls, PA native put up one of his best games of the season.
Leave a Reply