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KANNAPOLIS — The 4-0 lead was gone. The pitching was struggling. And the two-game losing streak appeared to be getting closer and closer to a three-game losing streak.
Time to panic for the Piedmont Boll Weevils?
“We don’t panic,” said Jay Sitzman. “We’ve got a good team.”
And Sitzman then proved it in the bottom of the seventh. The Arizona State product crushed a two-strike fastball to the left-center field wall, driving in the game-winner in a 6-4 Weevils victory over Delmarva.
Monday’s win brought a sigh of relief to Piedmont. The Weevils (26-12) were in first place in the Northern Division coming in but had lost two straight in front of the home fans and didn’t look good doing it.
So the victory in front of 1,157 fans at chilly Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium was for the fans and for their postseason hopes.
“We don’t like losing two in a row,” said relief pitcher Chris Keelin (1-1), who was the eventual winner. “We don’t like losing one in a row. We’re fighting for the first-half championship and we couldn’t go 1-3 against this team.”
But when manager Greg Legg went to the mound with two outs in the top of the seventh to replace reliever Matt Bailie with Keelin, he was scratching his head. Delmarva (20-18) had scored single runs in the third, fifth, sixth and seventh innings and an early Weevil lead had been frittered away by walks and errors.
“Me and (catcher Russ Jacobson) stood on the mound waiting for Keelin and I said, ‘Don’t we look kinda flat ... like we’re beaten?’ ” said Legg.
At that point, the Weevils had committed seven errors in the past 21 innings and Bailie, who had pitched well in recent outings, had given up four hits and two runs in 123 innings.
But Keelin, a 6-foot-2, righty, righted the sinking ship. He got out of the seventh-inning jam and left things up to the offense.
“We always score runs so I felt if I could stop them there, we could win,” said the Suffex, N.J., native.
And right on cue, the Weevils went from flat to flying in the bottom of the seventh.
Ambiorix Reyes reached on an error and trotted to second when the ball went out of play. That brought up Sitzman, hitting .349. He quickly figured out Delmarva’s third pitcher, Gilberto Bello, a 6-3 righty.
“He was throwing me fastballs away the whole (at-bat) so I was looking for that,” Sitzman said.
With two strikes, Bello delivered and so did Sitzman, sending a rocket past the outfielders, easily scoring Reyes for a 5-4 lead. After Tom Batson singled Sitzman to third, Marlon Byrd’s double-play grounder scored him for a two-run cushion.
Unlike Sunday’s 9-5 debacle, the Weevils would not fold in the late innings. Keelin was masterful in the eighth, striking out two batters. He gave way to Justin Fry’s heater in the ninth and Fry picked up his fourth save.
“Anybody in our bullpen can do it,” Keelin said. “I was just lucky that tonight, it was me. But we don’t like losing. It didn’t feel good.”
Neither did losing a 4-0 lead that was practically handed to them in the second.
Nate Espy, the league’s leading hitter, singled and scored when a hustling Shomari Beverly beat out an infield hit. Jacobson singled and later scored on an error by shortstop Ed Rogers. Beverly sped home on a wild pitch. Batson’s RBI made it 4-0.
Starter Matire Franco was pulled after five innings and four walks but left with a 4-2 lead.
“I probably took him out an inning or so too early,” admitted Legg. “But Bailie had been so strong for us that I thought he could get us through the seventh. Delmarva has a good club, though. They put pressure on us. I like their style.”
Things were going fine for Bailie and the Weevils in the seventh. Beverly made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch while running full-speed and the first two outs were recorded easily.
Mamon Tucker reached and then tried to score on a bloop hit by Ray Cabrera. Second baseman Buzz Hannahan retrieved the ball in short right and rifled a shot home that beat Tucker by five feet. But Jacobson couldn’t handle the ball and Tucker scored the tying run.
“The throw hit the lip,” said Legg. “It hit the grass and skipped away.”
That’s when the Weevils obviously took a deep breath, took a good look at themselves and replaced their furrowed brows with a much-needed grin or two.
“We were blaming our new trainer for the losing streak because he changed up our training program,” laughed Sitzman. “We were going after him if we had lost again.”
“There were some good things in that game and there were some things that weren’t so pretty,” Legg said. “But we scratched one out and now, we’ve got to split with them.”
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NOTES: The four-game series ends tonight at Fieldcrest Cannon at 6:35 p.m. ... The Weevils are off Wednesday and then begin a four-game home series against Savannah. ... The Weevils have not lost three in a row this season.
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