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“That’s a pretty funny story,” he said. “It was last year, I went an inning and a third, and hit three batters.”
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Winona Senior High third baseman Jeff Walters, center, mishandles a bouncing ground ball as teammate Devon Grossell, right, backs him up and Mankato West's Chris Wilke runs safely to third base during the first game of a Big Nine Conference doubleheader Friday in Winona. (Photo by Andrew Link/Winona Daily News) |
Over the last four days, the Winona Senior High School baseball team has played five games. It has another one today at 11 a.m. against Rochester Century.
Friday, WSHS played a doubleheader against Mankato West. This after a doubleheader the day before.
The Winhawks dropped the first game 9-0 at home to the Scarlets.
Somewhere between the end of that game and the beginning of the next, WSHS coach Matt Smith went up and told Svendsen he was starting the second game. It was the first Svendsen heard of pitching.
“I was excited, but scared,” the senior said.
Svendsen held his own, but the Winhawks lost 6-5. No, Svendsen wasn’t imitating Cy Young out there, but he did one very important thing. He went seven innings.
There wasn’t exactly a solid backup plan if Svendsen couldn’t get it done. Playing six games in five days, there’s not exactly a plan. It’s more like find an arm that can throw strikes.
For a while, Svendsen didn’t exactly do that. He walked eight and struck out six.
He got the first batter of the game out, no problem, but then gave up a single, hit a batter, walked another and then gave up an RBI single.
“He was a little bit excited, for lack of a better word, in the first inning,” Smith said. “But he saved us a pitcher for tomorrow. This has been a tough week.”
Mankato West (7-5, 7-5) had a 3-0 lead after the first inning and Svendsen wasn’t feeling so hot.
“I just get nervous out there, but wanted to get it done for the team,” he said.
The team helped him out. Devon Grossell led off the WSHS part of the first with a single and Brandon Schmit followed with an RBI double. Two walks later, Chris Jack pulled Winona within 3-2 with an RBI groundout.
After six innings, the Winhawks found themselves down 6-3 with just three outs to go. Those three outs didn’t come easy.
Grossell, who was 2-for-4 and scored three runs, started the seventh with a double. And, like the first inning, Schmit knocked him in, this time with a double of his own.
Trevor Semann came up two batters later with an RBI single and all of the sudden the tying run was on and there was just one out.
But reliever Luke Weber, who entered after Grossell’s double, settled in and struck out the last two to save it.
In the opening game, WSHS had one bad inning. It wasn’t as bad as the four-error, 12-run sixth it gave up the previous day, but it did decide the outcome.
The Winhawks (4-8, 4-7) were down just 2-0 heading into the sixth before committing one error and giving up seven hits and seven runs to fall behind 9-0. Five of those runs came with two outs.
“Yeah, if we can just go right from the fifth to the seventh inning, that would be nice,” Smith joked. “But, unlike last night, where we committed four errors, tonight, they just hit the ball.”
Had the situation been different, Smith would have been able to give pitcher Tom Kreidermacher more help.
“He just ran out of gas,” Smith said. “We had to pitch him as long as we could. Had we just been playing one game, I would have probably taken him out sooner.”
Kreidermacher gave up four earned runs of the eight runs in 5 2/3 innings. Winona left nine stranded on base in that opening loss. Mankato left five stranded.
