Johnathan Edwards
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
In a season of firsts, this first was a sweet one for the Tri-State Coal Cats. The Appalachian League’s newest team traveled to Kingsport, Tennessee, scoring two victories against the Axmen on Friday and Saturday. Originally, this series was slated for Friday through Sunday, but inclement weather on Sunday evening got in the way. With the two wins, the Coal Cats evens out its record at 2-2, and the Axmen fall to 1-3 with the two losses.
Starting with Friday’s action, it was a low scoring affair, something unheard of in the opening pair of games for Tri-State. Against Pulaski, the Coal Cats had allowed 14 runs across two games… six on opening night and eight on night two. This improvement on the defensive side for the Coal Cats paid off, allowing one run in the two-game series with Kingsport. The singular run for the Axmen came in the bottom of the third inning on Friday, courtesy of a sacrificial ground-out off the bat of Devan Zirwas that scored Jet Gilliam from third. Gilliam had reached third prior to the sacrificial play thanks to his triple down into right field. The Axmen possessed a 1-0 lead from that point up until the top of the sixth, when Matt Ilgenfritz cranked a double that scored Trey Lawrence and Isaac Cadena. These two runs plated gave Tri-State the 2-1 lead, an advantage the Coal Cats would not surrender for the remainder of the game. Left-handed pitcher Andrew Callaway earned the official win on the mound, his first of the season. Callaway threw 27 strikes across 44 pitches in three innings of middle relief, while also collecting three strikeouts. With the narrow victory, the Coal Cats had officially joined the win column. As with any baseball league, however, it’s a quick turnaround.
The team from Huntington, West Virginia must have celebrated the win on Friday night by jamming out to Walk This Way by Aerosmith, because Saturday’s win can largely be credited to the absolutely unholy number of walks the Axmen gifted the Coal Cats. The game went haywire immediately for Kingsport, falling into an 8-0 hole against Tri-State before even getting a chance to send a batter to the box. In the top of the first inning alone, five of the eight runs scored by the Coal Cats came via walks or being hit by a pitch. Before the avoidable woes for the Axmen, however, the onslaught of Tri-State scoring began with Ryan Limerick whacking a double that drove in Isaac Turner to make it 1-0. Following a myriad of wild pitches, passed balls, and the wrong kind of contact with the batter that will earn the man in the box a free trot to first base, it quickly became 7-0. The final run in the top of the first arrived thanks to a single from Matt Ilgenfritz, which scored Isaac Cadena from third.
Apparently, that wasn’t enough for the Coal Cats, as the team tallied one more run in the third inning. Thanks to yet another wild throw from the Axmen’s pile of pitchers, Cadena found home plate again. Tri-State was simply playing the role of mortician at this point, leading 9-0 through three innings. As with any job, though, sometimes one has to get one’s hands dirty. The proverbial nails in Kingsport’s coffin were hammered in with two runs in the top of the fourth, both runs thanks to pitching errors from the Axmen. The final score, through seven complete innings before being called off early, was a whopping 11-0 in favor of the visiting Coal Cats. The collective pitching outing from Tri-State was on the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Kingsport, with Ben Roberts earning the win, alongside his eight strikeouts on the evening. As a collective unit on Saturday, the Tri-State pitching department only allowed two hits, recorded 11 strikeouts, and left a goose egg on Kingsport’s side of the scoreboard.
The Saturday game was a rare example of how a team can simply stand in the batter’s box, get smacked by a wild pitch every now and then, get walked, sit pretty, and win a baseball game. The Coal Cats are back in action at Jack Cook Field this week with a four-game series against the Greeneville Flyboys, starting on Tuesday evening. Audio versions of series recaps will return following the upcoming series with the Flyboys. Until then, you can always find all things Tri-State baseball in the “Coal Cats Corner” section of the website. Onward and upward.