Rams baseball lose a rough game to the Warriors

Posted by jack bello on Apr 10, 2012 in Telegram Past News

The Dixon Rams baseball team took another tough loss on Monday, losing by the score of 9-0 to the WintersWarriors. The Rams had a week off before this game, and they definitely played like they had a week off because of lack in efficiency and overall hustle. The Rams were definitely rusty in this home game, and due to their lack of efficiency, the Rams fell to 0-8 in non-league match-ups, but are 5-8-1 overall. Despite their bad non-league record, the Rams have had a great year in league, but once again with Winters, the Rams couldn’t seem to get the win.

The Rams started junior pitcher Derek Catron, who started the top of the first well, getting a ground-out and a strikeout on four pitches. With two outs, Catron hit the next batter, and off of a 2 out single, the Warriors would get their first run of the game making it 1-0. Catron would give up another hit in the inning, but finally settled down and struck-out another Warrior to leave the score at 1-0. Despite the Rams only allowing the one run, they couldn’t get the job done because in the bottom of the first the Rams struck out three straight batters to end the first down 1-0.

The Warriors in the second inning would add onto their lead with an RBI double to right field to add onto their lead making it 2-0. The Warriors would tack on another run off an RBI single and would go up 3-0. Catron finally settled in and threw a groundout and a strikeout to avoid the big inning for the Warriors. However, the Rams continued to struggle with their bats and would go three up three down to end the second inning down 3-0.

The Rams would then bring in pitcher Nate Karber, to continue the game.Karber struggled through the inning with only one out, and he had runners on second and third base. Karber then got a big strikeout and a groundout to come out of the inning unscathed in the top of the third inning. However, the Rams, despite having a chance to get back into the game, couldn’t. The Warriors pitcher would strikeout the side to end the third with the lead 3-0.

Going into the fourth inning became disastrous for the Rams, giving up four runs in the inning in which only one of the runs were earned. The Rams committed 2 errors in the inning to allow the Warriors to open up the lead to a devastating deficit at 7-0. The Rams finally though started the third inning well with an opening double from Joe Quintinella to give the Rams a base runner. The Rams mishandled the runner in scoring position and had three straight outs to end the fourth inning down 7-0.

The Rams would then bring in Christopher Rost to stop the bleeding from the previous four innings. However, Rost struggled to throw strikes as he would walk 2 in the inning, but would sneak out of the inning only giving one run, but it would extend the deficit to 8-0. The Rams in the bottom of the fifth inning were able to get some more runners on base off of a 1 out single from A.J. Bell and a 2 out single from Johnny Feely. With two runners on, the Rams couldn’t do anything with the runners and would have another scoreless inning.

Rost in the sixth inning continued to struggle with his command and would walk three more batters, but somehow found a way to get out of the inning by only giving up 1 run. In the bottom of the sixth, the Rams continued their scoreless play and would end the sixth inning down 9-0.

In the 7th inning they managed to keep the Warriors off the scoreboard, but they themselves were held to no runs, and the Warriors were able to win the shutout over the Rams.

The Rams were clearly very rusty due to their week off from any games, and this was clearly a major factor in the Rams 8th loss of the year. However, the Rams have shown the ability to win games through their great hitting, but they clearly didn’t have that edge and fell to the Warriors in a bad way. The Rams league success keeps them in the playoff picture, but they must play well for the rest of the year in order to get to their ultimate goal to get into the playoffs and to win the GEL championship.