Larks return to basics, defeat Dodge City 4-3
By CONOR NICHOLL
DODGE CITY -- On Tuesday night, the Larks, in a sloppy win, committed a season-high seven errors and allowed seven runs against Dodge City, the second-most runs allowed in their last 17 games.
A night later yielded a return to the basics: pitching and defense.
The Larks erased Tuesday's poor game with a crisp, comeback 4-3 victory at Cavalier Field. They didn't make a single error, three pitchers struck out 11 batters and permitted just three singles after the fourth inning.
"We talked after last night's ball game about what is going to win day in and day out," Larks manager Frank Leo said. "It's pitching and it's defense. Once in awhile you are going to have to rely on offense and we did that (Tuesday), but great turnaround."
The Larks won their third straight game and moved to 16-8 overall and 12-5 in the Jayhawk League. They are 4-2 in their last six games, halfway through an 11-game stretch that features five road trips. That includes a three-game series at first=place Derby this weekend.
"It seems like every time these guys are challenged to turn their game around and turn it up ... they have been responding," Leo said.
Dodge City, though, didn't play well defensively for the second straight night. The A's, who committed three errors in Tuesday's game, had three more miscues Wednesday night ¬-- all of them costly. One in the eighth inning opened the door for Jason Kudlock's game-tying double and Brandon Eckerle's go-ahead single.
"I don't know if we even gave an earned run, maybe one," A's coach Phil Stephenson said. "We had chances to get out of innings a couple of times. We didn't do it and they capitalized."
Dodge City took a 3-2 lead after three innings when it hit first and third inning homers off Casey Hauptman, a University of Nebraska product. Hauptman, who hadn't pitched in over a week, settled down in his last two innings and permitted just one hit. He finished with five innings, three runs allowed.
"We told our starters give us five, six good innings and we have got some good guys in the bullpen," Leo said. "We can get through six innings and be in a ball game and stay close, we have a good chance for a win."
That proved true again Wednesday.
After a leadoff single in the sixth, Steven Mazur, part of the Larks' late-inning shutdown bullpen corps that also includes Chase Johnson and Kevin Hennessey, relieved Hauptman and struck out the remaining three batters.
Mazur, a Notre Dame pitcher in the spring, worked out of a seventh-inning jam with a double-play ball and delivered a 1-2-3 eighth inning that included two more strikeouts.
Overall, Mazur (2-0), Hennessey and Johnson (who closed Tuesday's win) are 3-1 with a 1.06 earned-run average and 73 strikeouts in 42 1/3 innings.
"Fastballs with movement and he spotted," Leo said. "He has a good breaking pitch, didn't have to use it much tonight. Breaking ball, slider-type pitch. He threw a couple to keep them honest, but his fastball, they couldn't catch up to it."
The Larks' offense came back in the eighth against A's reliever Kevin Ginorio. With two outs, Andrew Heck hit a ground ball to deep short for an infield single. However, A's shortstop Travis Meiners made a off-line throw that first baseman Adam Hamilton couldn't catch.
Heck moved to second on the error.
"You have to catch the ball instead of giving the guy the extra base because the gaps are short enough here where if a guy hits the ball in the gap, you can possibly cut down a run," Stephenson said.
The miscue helped change the complexion of the inning.
Kudlock, hitting .326 this summer, pinch-hit for Chase Schippers and laced a game-tying double to left-center on the second pitch. Heck scored easily.
"That was set in place the inning before," Leo said of Kudlock's pinch-hit. "We were getting ready and in case we had an RBI situation we were going to go to Jason. He swings a good bat and has been a good pinch-hitter for us. He did what a pitch hitter needs to do -- he didn't take, he came out swinging."
Eckerle, batting .518 (14-for-27) with seven RBIs in the last six games, singled sharply up the middle for his second RBI single of the game. The play at the play was close, but A's catcher Max Taylor couldn't handle the throw and Kudlock gave the Larks the lead.
"It was bang-bang," Leo said.
Hennessey closed out the game in the ninth to earn a save.
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