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LANDIS — This certainly was not the game Allen Wilson hoped to watch Wednesday night.
What the South Rowan American Legion baseball coach envisioned was a fast-paced, low-scoring affair, something reminiscent of an early-70s Seaver-Carlton matchup.
“Three-to-two would have been a beautiful game,” he explained moments after South lost one that was anything but. “That would have been perfect.”
What Wilson got was a 350-pitch, three-hour marathon that at times moved slower than a Foreman-Holmes footrace. At the finish line South was handed an unsightly 13-9 loss to visiting Rowan County.
“It would have been a big confidence booster had we won,” said South catcher Jeremy Alderman. “It would have given us a sweep against them. At least we didn’t let them run away with it.”
The guests, 11-4 losers to South on May 31, set the tone quickly when they waxed losing pitcher Chris Morris for six runs in the top of the first inning. The South left-hander issued four walks and three hits — including Brad Canipe’s devastating grand slam into the wind — and was yanked after 37 pitches.
“Everything went wrong,” Morris said after falling to 0-3. “My control wasn’t there. I felt good before the game. I felt good warming up. But once it started, nothing was happening.”
Alderman, who collected two of South’s six hits, groped for an explanation.
“(Morris) was ready down in the bullpen,” he said. “I guess he got a little anxious when the game started. He was trying to get them out one at a time. But he got a few pitches up and Rowan, well, they always hit the ball.”
Morris left amid a rainstorm of line drives and was replaced by right-hander John Brooks, who temporarily stopped the bleeding. But when Rowan mounted an 8-1 lead in the third, it looked like the swollen crowd might be sent home early.
“If it had been a low-scoring game, we felt we had an advantage,” said Wilson. “We bunt runners over, we hit-and-run well. We play National League baseball. That’s what we wanted to do. When they started putting all those runs on the board, I knew we were in for a battle.”
South did battle back, drawing as close as 9-7 on Greg Deal’s two-out single in the last of the sixth. But any hope of winning was snuffed in the ninth, when South reliever Drew Lyerly yielded a two-run homer to Brett Peiffer and a solo shot to Canipe.
“That team really swings the bats,” said Morris. “That’s how Rowan always is. You have to play a near-perfect game to beat them.”
And this one was far from near-perfect. In fact, it marked the third straight game — and fifth this season — that South has allowed five or more first-inning runs.
“We have to find a way to get past the first inning,” said Wilson. “We’ve been terrible. Hopefully, it’s one of those growing things that we can put behind us as we get close to the playoffs. It’s better to have them happen now than in the playoffs.”
With two regular-season games remaining, South (6-14 overall, 6-12 league) has hit a bad patch, dropping seven of its past nine decisions. It remains a mathematical — though unlikely — contender for seventh place. Postseason play begins June 21.
“We know what we’ve got to do,” said Wilson. “We’ve got to be better prepared and ready to play right from the first inning.”
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