MOBILE, Ala. - The Jaguar bats made noise scoring in six different innings today to support the shutdown performance on the mound by
Cam Hill.
Facing 26 batters in his 7.0 innings, Hill threw five strikeouts and allowed only five hits, with one hit batter. Hill's defense stayed strong around him, drawing outs from five of the seven leadoff hitters to keep opposing batters on their heels.Â
The Jags' lone run in the opening frame came by way of a hit batter with bases already loaded. The second saw back to back RBI singles by the turn of the batting order with Tyler Borges and Will Turner. Borges again sent another runner home in the fourth with another RBI single. The fifth inning was full of hard contact as South traded between doubles and sacrifice flies to score three more runners. Ismaili continued the hard contact in the next inning by way of a two-run home run off the scoreboard. The final runs for South came in the seventh with a wild pitch advancing a runner home and a sacrifice hit to center field for good measure.Â
Winning Pitcher: Cam Hill (1-0)
Losing Pitcher: Foster McDonald (0-1)
QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi:
On Cam Hill's showing: Yeah, I thought he was great. Seven innings held his velocity. Last week he was good (in his) first start but his velo dipped at, like pitch 50 and, man, he was as good in innings six and seven as he was innings one and two. Five hits, no walks, wind blowing out against a very dangerous hitting club, which we saw yesterday. I thought he was fantastic. Yeah, he was really good.
On pitching overall today: Yeah, I mean, they (Leif Moore and Tyler Smith) both went out there. You know, we got seven out of our nine leadoff outs which was huge, and you know it was good to get those guys some work in there. We were ahead but it was good to run some guys out there.
On the offense today and the new batting order: Yeah, the personnel was the same. The order was different. I just felt as though, and even though we were 6-0, we all as a coaching staff sat here and we're like, "Is it me or are we kind of pitch-able, susceptible to some matchups and things of that nature?", and I'm like "We are but we were 6-0 at the time and it's kind of one of the things you don't mess with the winning streak", so we just left the order where it was at. I think the right thing was to kind of spread it out and there might be a couple like, same personnel moves, beside a guy upside a guy down. I just felt from a matchup standpoint: left, right, left, right all the way down, it doesn't let the opposing pitcher settle in, especially a changeup guy, or a specialty, same side breaking ball guy. It doesn't really let him settle in and get a good feel with two or three of the same side hitters coming up. So yeah, we just broke it up, and then some guys are swinging it better. Will Turner is swinging it better. Robbie Petracci is swinging it better; he looked like himself today. So yeah, very happy with our production.
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