FREDERICKSBURG, VA — Greater Lynn Babe Ruth has continued its red-hot winning streak defeating Hamilton, N.J., 3-0 Tuesday at VA Credit Union Field, home of the minor league Fredericksburg Nationals.
With the win, Lynn has clinched a spot in the World Series bracket that takes the top three teams from each division where they will fight for the world championship. Currently, Lynn controls its destiny in terms of seeding going into its final pool play game Wednesday.
Before Tuesday’s game, Lynn Manager Leon Elwell said his team had not played its best game yet. He pointed to aspects such as fielding and hitting as ways to improve the team’s World Series run thus far.
The team cleaned up some of the nagging issues against Hamilton en route to its third straight World Series victory, allowing only two hits as a team, amassing seven hits of their own, and playing flawlessly in the field, not committing an error.
Although Lynn had some baserunning mistakes during the game, Elwell said it was easily the team’s best game to date.
“Without a doubt, it was our best game … our defense, we played a really good clean game, Kyle Cummings was great behind the plate today — defensively we did really, really well,” he said. “The guys kind of broke out with the bats a little bit — Shea Newhall continues to be one of our biggest leaders offensively.”
As has been the case for the World Series, Lynn’s pitching was nearly unhittable. Jared Paone got the start for Lynn and was dominant, throwing five innings, striking out nine, and allowing only one hit.
“I cannot say enough about Jared’s performance — he was unbelievable … he was dominant today, and unfortunately, he ran out of pitches, but I think that was in large part due to the nine strikeouts that he had — got his pitch count up there pretty high,” said Elwell.
While Paone ended up dominating Hamilton, he did run into a bit of a jam in the first inning. Paone allowed his only hit of the game in the first inning, and after a walk, Hamilton had two runners on with nobody out.
However, Paone showed some guts by striking out Jack Ivens and forcing the next two batters to pop out, ending the inning.
“He [Paone] struggled there in the first inning — I think he may have been nervous — but once he settled in, he was lights out. He dominated today against a pretty good team,” said Elwell.
After surviving Hamilton’s scoring chance in the first inning, Lynn responded offensively in the top half of the second. Newhall, who has been red-hot during the team’s winning streak, got on base with a bloop single. After Hamilton pitcher Triston Bonilla had an errant pick-off attempt, Newhall got himself in scoring position.
Shortly after Bonilla’s error, Newhall advanced to third on a passed ball, setting up Christian Figueroa, who knocked in Newhall with an RBI sacrifice ground out to take a 1-0 lead.
Paone continued to shine throughout the middle innings and helped himself offensively to begin the top of the fourth. Paone led off the inning with a single down the third base line, and Matthew Lewis laid down a beautiful bunt to move him to second.
With a runner on second, the duo of Newhall and Figueroa came up huge again. Newhall hit another single to left field to get runners on the corners and Figueroa drove in another run with his ground out to third that was played errantly, making the game 2-0.
Down two runs and struggling to get much going, Hamilton had a glimpse of hope in the bottom half of the fourth. After a lead-off walk, Paone settled down to get the next two Hamilton batters out. However, Josh Klena and Chase Porcella both walked to load the bases with two outs.
In a dire situation, Paone was nails; he got Joshua Guire to strike out looking on three straight pitches to preserve Lynn’s 2-0 lead.
In the top of the sixth, Lynn was able to get an insurance run from a sacrifice RBI ground out by Newhall to make the game 3-0. Jake Peterson came in for relief to start the bottom half of the sixth and shut down Hamilton, getting the six-out save, sealing Lynn’s 3-0 victory.
Lynn will play Torrance, California Wednesday at 4 p.m. in a battle to determine the number one seed in the American division. The winner will have a bye on Thursday and begin bracket play on Friday.
“We are going into the game set with the same mentality. The first goal was to secure a spot in the championship round, and the second goal obviously is to finish pool play with the number one seed,” said Elwell. “That has to be our mindset going into tomorrow that we want to be the number one seed, and we are going to do everything we can to make that happen.”
Michael Coughlin Jr. can be reached at [email protected].
