What has turned into a troubling pattern for the Baldwinsville baseball team is that it can pitch well in nearly every game, only to not get rewarded much for it.
That was true in a pair of defeats to Syracuse in the first week of May, and continued into its ensuing series against West Genesee, which started in Camillus last Monday where the Bees took a 4-1 defeat to the Wildcats.
B’ville did get a run in the top of the first inning, scored by Carson Hayes, but for the rest of the game the chilly bats resembled the chilly temperatures as it got four hits off WG’s pitcher tandem of Brian Hartnett and Billy O’Brien.
Meanwhile, Nate Valentine was solid on the mound for B’ville, even as he allowed single runs in the first and second innings and two more in the fifth. Valentine finished with six strikeouts as Matt Kot led the Wildcats with two hits, two runs scored an RBI.
Back home a day later, the Bees looked to get even with WG, and did so thanks mostly to the strong pitching of Cameron Morrissey, who kept the Wildcats off the board – and had to, in order to win a 1-0 decision.
During his seven innings of work, Morrissey held WG to three hits, two of them by Will Haag. Though only getting two strikeouts, Morrissey induced weak contact and got stellar defense behind him, too.
B’ville, meanwhile, had just four hits, two of them by Anthony May, but broke through against WG pitcher James Randall in the second inning as Jarrod Williams doubled and scored on Alex Robinson’s single.
In the final game of the series on Thursday afternoon, B’ville again managed a single run – and lost, 7-1, as WG head coach Kevin Krause picked up his 200th career victory with the Wildcats.
This was also a pitcher’s duel most of the way, Jack Andres going for B’ville and only allowing one run in the first four innings as WG’s Marshall Winn limited the Bees to a single hit in his six-inning stint.
Then it broke open when WG knocked out Andres in the bottom of the fifth and batted around, producing six runs. B’ville was unable to get on the board until the seventh, when Frankie Levanti’s single off reliever Liam Barry scored Morrissey.
Once that series was over, B’ville, on Friday, made up the last portion of its three-game series with Syracuse, to whom it had lost twice the week before. Here, though, the Bees prevailed 10-1, getting six strong innings from pitcher Jason Savacool as he struck out eight to offset four walks and three hits allowed.
At the plate, the Bees took over in the middle stages with a four-run third inning and two runs in the second and fourth frames. Matt Mercurio, with two hits and two RBIs, led the way as Levanti scored three runs, also joining Hayes and Cam Williams in the RBI column.
What was left for B’ville (7-8), in the last week of the regular season, was a three-game set against its neighbors from Liverpool, who was undefeated and ranked in the state Class AA top 10 before a pair of defeats last week to Cicero-North Syracuse.
