By Dave Hart
LocalSportsJournal.com
MUSKEGON – The Muskegon Clippers didn’t pound out many hits on Saturday night, but they took advantage of many fielding errors and below average pitching to get an easy victory.
The Clippers defeated the Grand Lake Mariners in eight innings, due to the mercy-rule, 13-3 at Marsh Field.
Muskegon scored 13 runs, but only mustered just hits.
The Clippers took advantage of four fielding errors, 16 walks, two hit batters, and 10 wild pitches to earn the 10-run win.
“We put some patient at-bats together and moved the ball with guys in running position,” said Clippers’ manager Logan Fleener. “They were competitive at bats. We can’t dictate how the other team is going to pitch. We needed to just stay locked in and when they got two strikes on them, they found a way to get to ball four or to first base.”
The Clippers will look to complete the three-game sweep of Grand Lake at 3:05 Sunday at Marsh Field.
Muskegon will travel to take on the Southern Ohio Copperheads for a three-game series starting Tuesday night.
The Clippers also got some solid innings from a couple of their pitchers as their starter Colton Blankstrom earned the win, allowing three runs on seven hits while striking out five batters in five innings of work.
Benjamin Van Nes finished the game by tossing three scoreless innings while giving up two hits and striking out two.
“I don’t think that Colton (Blankstrom) believed he had his A-stuff today,” Fleener said. “The secondary pitch wasn’t there, but he still did well enough to give us five innings. Van Nes also competed well today.”
It didn’t start out well for Blankstrom as he gave up a pair of RBI singles that gave the Mariners an early 2-0 lead in the first inning.
“It wasn’t the greatest for me in the first inning,” said Blankstrom, from Whitehall. “I had to get settled in, and after that happened, it went great. It felt great because I want to show out, being a hometown kid.”
The Clippers scored on a wild pitch in the first to cut their deficit to 2-1, then tied the game in the second inning after scoring on an error by the Grand Lake shortstop.
The Mariners regained the lead with an RBI single in the fourth, but Muskegon responded by scoring two runs on an error and another on a bases loaded walk to take a 5-3 lead.
Muskegon added to its lead on an RBI single from Gabe Bonemer to give the Clippers a 6-3 lead through five innings.
The Clippers added three more runs in the seventh inning on a solo home run by Ashten Wong, another Grand Lake error, and another bases loaded walk.
Muskegon completed the victory by scoring four more runs in the eighth inning and walked off for a 10-run mercy rule.
The Clippers scored on a wild pitch, a two-run double by Chase Raymond and a bases loaded walk.
Bonemer paced the Clipper offense with two hits, two runs scored and an RBI, while Raymond had one hit and three RBI.
Wong scored three times, had a hit and an RBI, while Zachary Warren drew three walks, had a hit and scored three runs.
Photos by Michael Banka