KANNAPOLIS — Chris Waters didn’t pitch Thursday night at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium.
He tortured.
The Macon left-hander teased the Intimidators into madness, serving up a buffet of off-speed pitches and paint-the-corner junk balls that sent the hosts back to their seats empty handed.
“Sometimes you’ve got to tip your hat and give the guy on the other side credit,” manager Razor Shines said after Kannapolis ingested a 2-1 loss. “That’s what I’m gonna do tonight. Mr. Waters was extremely effective. He moved the ball in-and-out and up-and-down. He changed speeds and he kept us off-balance for nine innings. That was one of the best pitching performances against our club all year.”
Waters did it against a piping-hot Kannapolis team (35-12) — one that had won seven consecutive games, exploded for 20 hits a night earlier, boasted the South Atlantic League’s second-best team batting average (.267) and had scored 40 runs in its previous five games.
“(Wednesday) night they sat on fastball counts and got all those hits, one after the other,” Waters said after pitching his first complete game. “So tonight on fastball counts I threw the change-up and on change-up counts I threw the fastball.”
That piece of reverse psychology proved an interesting strategy, one that checked Kannapolis on five hits. Perhaps more importantly, he lived on the lower level — inducing 14 groundouts.
“He just knew the game,” said catcher Wally Rosa. “He threw the fastball in and the soft one away. And his best pitch, the change-up, he kept downstairs.”
Rosa was the only Kannapolis batter to truly solve this Rubik’s Cube of a pitcher. He went 3-for-3 with a pair of singles and an eighth-inning double to the left-centerfield gap. Yet he was more concerned about the wasted effort of Intimidators’ starting pitcher Kris McWhirter.
“What made me mad was that he threw a perfect game and we couldn’t score any runs for him,” Rosa said. “He had all his pitches — the two-seamer, the wrap-around slider and the changeup. He deserved to win.”
McWhirter (6-3) pitched eight stain-free innings but failed to become the team’s first seven-game winner. He allowed four singles and a huge sixth-inning triple by Angelo Burrows, struck out six and walked none.
“I don’t feel bad about (losing) at all,” said McWhirter. “We’re second in the league in hitting. These guys have been getting us runs every night. (Waters) just had a great game. He reminded me of Tom Glavine, a finesse guy. He had a decent change-up, a good curve and he hit his spots like you’re supposed to.”
Even Shines couldn’t argue with that. “When you go eight innings and give up two runs, you’re gonna win the majority of the time,” he said. “McWhirter did his job. This just happened to be one of those nights when the guy on the other side of the mound did his a little bit better.”
The Intimidators spoiled Waters’ shutout bid when they scored without getting a hit in the last of the ninth inning. With one out John Lackaff drew back-to-back walks, then engineered a double steal to place the potential tying runs in scoring position. Designated hitter Ralph Flores, owner of a glow-in-the-dark bat of late, delivered the only Kannapolis run when he bounced out to shortstop. Waters sealed the deal by fanning Darren Ciraco on — how fitting was this? — a 1-2 change-up below the knees.
“He’d been swinging at it all night so I said, ‘Why not?’” explained Waters, who also picked off two baserunners. “Basically, I just had to stay focused, work my pitches and rely on my defense, which was great. We got the outs when we needed them.”
Today's News
