This story is sponsored by: Curves of Marshfield
By Steve Pilz
For MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – Pitching and defense.
People who have been around baseball a while, have heard that phrase uttered by coaches, players and fans alike.
Those hanging around the Marshfield Chaparrals this summer know that they have both pitching and defense, in spades.
The Chaps ran their winning streak to eight games Friday evening downing perennial powerhouse Sparta Miller 5-1 at Marshfield’s Jack Hackman Field.
Sparta (11-5) has won the last two Wisconsin Baseball Association state titles, but had no answer against the Chaps.
If pitching and defense are two words key to winning baseball, the Chaps had two words of their own on Friday night: Ryan Metz.
Metz, making his third appearance on the mound this season, twirled a masterpiece. The crafty righty overcame the Chaps only error of the night allowing just one run, albeit unearned. Metz scattered seven hits and was never really tested. His command was uncanny in giving up 10 groundball outs, and eight fly ball outs while walking no one. The veteran hurler turned back the clock a bit ringing up 10 Miller via the strike out to run his record to 2-0 and dropped his ERA to 0.95.
“It was a great team win,” Metz said. “We manufactured runs. We moved runners when we needed to and we didn’t strike out much. I tried to keep the ball down for some ground balls and the defense stepped up as usual and made some big plays.”
That defense has been a constant for the Chaps (10-1) this season. The error was just the second in the last three games and the Chaps have just 12 in 11 games this season. Coupled with their pitching staff, which, with Metz’s help, lowered their collective ERA to 1.99, the Chaps have a pretty good recipe for success.
An opportunistic offense doesn’t hurt. Bobby Pilz proved that true when he led off the third.
Pilz chopped a ball between the third baseman and the pitcher that the pitcher misplayed. A throwing error sent Pilz quickly scampering to second. Jack Donahue pushed a pitch to second for the first out, advancing Pilz to third. Pilz scored when Jason Kurth lifted a sacrifice fly to left to give the Chaps a 1-0 lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish.
The Chaps wrapped it up, for all intents and purposes, in the sixth when Sparta did what the Chaps refuse to do, and that was throw the ball all over the park.
Kurth hit a ball to lead off the sixth that the third baseman had no business throwing and Kurth was on second before he knew it. Ditto Austin Littman, again via the third baseman. Justin Rayburn’s ground-out scored Kurth and Nate McDonald walked. Sam Schwanebeck laced a 3-1 bullet past the first baseman scoring the speedy pair, Littman and McDonald, giving the Chaps all the runs they would need.
The Miller got their only run in the seventh via Marshfield’s error, but the Chaps got it back in the bottom of the inning when Donahue singled with one out and scored with Sparta committing yet another error.
Player/manager Rayburn summed it up, “Give a lot of the credit to Ryan (Metz). That was just a great pitching performance. He was really tough on them.
“We did a real nice job of manufacturing that first run. It gave us some momentum, and again in the sixth where we took advantage of what they gave us.”
The Chaps play a league game Monday at the Merrill Rangers beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Chaparrals 5, Miller 1
Sparta 000 000 100 – 1 7 4
Marshfield 001 003 10x – 5 7 1
WP: Ryan Metz. LP: Dan Schneider.
SO: Schneider (6 inn.) 5, Jordan Valaar (2 inn.); Metz 10. BB: Schneider 1.
Top hitters: S, Josh Knoll 3×4. M, Luke Wirtz 2×4, 2B; Sam Schwanbeck 1×3, 2 RBI.
Records: Sparta 11-5; Marshfield 10-1.