Jays back on track after loss to Orillia

July 3, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Brock Weir

After being humbled by the Orillia Majors last Tuesday in a 15 – 5 loss that snapped their eight game winning streak, the Jays quickly regrouped and finished the week with two wins to get them back on track.

Jays’ Mike Keon, who has been swinging a hot bat as of late, was pleased that his team was able to shake off the loss to Orillia right away.
“Orillia kind of came in and showed us that they are for real this year,” he said. “They’ve got a deep team that can hit really well, so it was important to get over that, move on and make sure that we came back and beat the Bolton Dodgers and again today against Nobleton.”

The score against Orillia might look a little worse than how the game went, as the Jays got into trouble early in the game giving up a grand slam to put them down 4 – 0 in the first inning.

Chris Leslie started for the Jays, but was relieved by Brent Owen for the fourth inning with the Jays down 6 – 3.

At one point, a rally didn’t seem impossible with Ted Beadle hitting a two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth to put the Jays within one run of tying the game.

Before the Jays could enjoy the comeback, Orillia responded in a big way scoring nine unanswered runs to serve the Jays a humbling 15 – 5 loss.
The Jays, however, weren’t going to let the losing feeling linger and were able to right the ship the next night against the Bolton Dodgers in an 8 – 2 win.

Ian Milne had a stellar outing, pitching a complete game allowing only two runs and fanning four.

Ted Beadle and Chris Fafalios led the offence with four hits between them, including a triple for Fafalios.

The Jays came out hard in the first inning, with three runs and were held quiet by Dodgers pitcher Shawn English until scoring five more runs in the sixth and seventh innings for an 8 – 2 win.

On Saturday, the Jays visited the struggling Nobleton Cornhuskers who are in their first season as part of the North Dufferin Baseball League.
Ian Rettie came off the disabled list after being off for two months with a broken wrist bone and pitched a gem for the Jays.

“Any time you can step out on the field feels good,” Rettie said. “I got lucky because it happened to my catching hand and not my pitching hand, so pitching is not a problem, but I’m still having a little trouble swinging the bat. At least I can go out and catch and pitch.”

Keon said it was great to see one of the team’s top pitchers back on the mound.

“It’s a big boost to have Rettie back,” he said “He’s been one of our most consistent pitchers over the last few years, so it’s a big boost to get him back, especially with the amount of rain-outs and the makeup games that we’re going to be playing in the last four weeks of the season.”
The Jays started off the scoring in the top of the second to take a 2 – 0 lead on the Cornhuskers.

They would add another in top of the third, but Cornhuskers’ bats woke up in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases with one out.

Down 3 – 1 with two out, Cornhusker Steve Scobie hit a double to drive in another run to pull Nobleton within one, but it was all they could manage as the Jays defense forced Nobleton to leave two men stranded on the bases to end the inning.

Hot hitting Jay Ted Beadle hit his fourth home run of the season and second in the past week to make it 5 – 2 in the top of fourth.

“I’m feeling good, because I started off the year pretty crappy, so it’s nice to be going up and hitting the ball,” Beadle said.

The Cornhuskers made the Jays sweat a little in the bottom of the sixth as Nobleton scored another run with two men on base. However, once again, the Jays limited the damage to keep the score at 5 – 3.

Feeling threatened, the Jays took it personal and came out swinging hard for a hit parade in the seventh, scoring four runs en route to a 9 – 3 win.
Beadle said the Jays will need more of the same to stay successful heading into the stretch and credited the pitching staff for much of the team’s success.

“The pitchers are throwing strikes and I think we had a lot of walks earlier in the week, especially against Orillia [seven in total], so now we’ve been throwing strikes and getting the defense involved and it’s much better.”

This week the Jays will attempt to keep the momentum going with games against the Creemore Braves and a rematch with Nobleton.