There’s a couple of ways to quantify how bad it got for the Emporia Gold on Thursday night at Soden’s Grove.
In two games over nine innings, Emporia was outscored 38-7 by McPherson. The Gold committed 14 errors. And when you take the scores and split them into two separate games, it’s just doesn’t get much better.
Emporia dropped Game One 24-4 in four innings, and lost by a slightly less brutal 14-3 in five innings in Game Two.
“I don’t know where to start,” Emporia coach Alex Reyes said. “I could point out a lot of things we did wrong. We never got anything going today. It’s just one of those days you want to forget about. The good thing is we have a game tomorrow.”
Ah, some good news. That’s true. Emporia does play one nine-inning game today against Wichita, and those nine innings should go a little better with pitching ace Chase Speer getting the start.
Reyes is hopping Speer can go nine innings tonight, because he used six pitchers on Thursday. All six had the same problems. They struggled to throw strikes, threw so many wild pitches and walked so many hitters that McPherson rarely even needed a hit to scores its runs.
“We only have 11 players and six or seven of the guys have pitching experience,” Reyes said, “so I have to do my best to try to rotate them in and out.”
McPherson used only two pitchers, and its pitchers made Emporia swing the bat. The Gold drew only one walk in the second game with McPherson pitcher Jeremy Moore forcing the Gold to put the ball in play.
Moore had only two strikeouts, but he limited the Gold to five hits and took a shutout into the fourth inning.
Emporia finally got going in the fourth when Jackson Perez led off with the only walk of the game for the Gold. Chase Speer followed with a single and Perez scored on an error by the center fielder.
Another error on Brett McEvoy’s fly ball to right field pushed Speer acrossf, and McEvoy scored on Matt Weathered’s double, and that might have been the one time all night that Emporia didn’t look outmatched.
The Gold’s three-run fourth made the game respectable at 8-3, but then McPherson responded with a six-run fifth inning, leading to the run-rule win. It took only two hits to score those six runs.
Tanner Page and Speer led the Gold with two hits apiece in Game Two. Page also singled and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in Game One.
Emporia dropped to 5-8 with the loss. Tonight’s game starts at 6 p.m. at Soden’s Grove.