Van Durmen Offers Relief As Kits Earn Split

Alex Van Durmen was part of the problem the first time Evanston’s baseball team played Glenbrook South Tuesday.

Thursday, he was part of the solution.

Van Durmen retired the last five batters of the game as the Wildkits survived another late rally by South and salvaged a split of their Central Suburban League South division series Thursday, topping the Titans 11-4.

The senior right-hander’s effort came with a sense of déjà vu about to sink in for the Wildkits, after the bullpen blew a 3-0 lead and allowed South to score eight runs in the 6th inning Tuesday.

This time, host Evanston built an 8-0 advantage before South struck for four runs in the top of the 6th. Van Durmen, the third Wildkit pitcher to appear in that inning, escaped a first and third, one-out jam and then set the losers down 1-2-3 in the 7th.

Officially, it wasn’t even a save. But Evanston’s bullpen woes are certainly a concern for head coach Frank Consiglio as his team enters the stretch run of the regular season. And Van Durmen may have climbed closer to the top of the short list of reliable relievers available for the upcoming high leverage situations on the mound.

Or maybe this is just a year where the Wildkits don’t really have a closer on the roster.

“I’d do this every day of the week if I could. I’d love to close games,” Van Durmen said. “I was actually supposed to be a long innings guy coming into the year, somebody who came in about the 3rd or 4th inning and provided some length.

“The problem with most of our relievers so far has been not being able to throw off-speed stuff for strikes. When we played Glenbrook South Tuesday, they just sat on fastballs and hit them. My off speed stuff hasn’t been too good, but it was really good today.

“We had the same thing happen to us (a big inning late in the contest) when we played New Trier this year, too. It’s tough when that happens. But what’s really good about this team --- better than last year --- is that when we lost a game last year, we’d usually lose two or three in a row. This year we’ve done a really good job of bouncing back.”

After hard-throwing Noah Cryns gave up the lead in that Tuesday debacle, Van Durmen couldn’t put out the fire, issuing a couple of walks sandwiched around his fielding error on the mound.

He was much sharper Thursday.

“All of our pitchers have had a hard time at some point,” he added. “Maybe today I showed the coaches a little something.”

Consiglio would just appreciate some consistency from his hurlers after his team improved to 15-6-1 overall and 6-4 in league play.

Starter Braden Grimm tossed five scoreless innings but then ran into trouble in the 6th when South loaded the bases with one outs via two singles and a walk. Charlie Kalil was up next on the mound for ETHS, but an error by Grimm at second base and singles by Colin Lally and pinch-hitter Michael Eschenbach gave Van Durmen another opportunity.

“When teams take a two-strike approach like that late in games to just put the ball in play, you have to be able to spin the baseball (with off-speed pitches),” said Consiglio. “That’s why we had planned to use Charlie and Alex today. We feel like they’re the ones who can do that at a high level for us.

“When you go back to our second game against New Trier, you’ll find that the number of times we’ve put up zeroes (by the pitching staff) is extraordinary. We’ve just had a couple of bad innings. I’m still in a learning mode with our bullpen. It’s a competition. I want to see Noah (Cryns) and Henry (Rouch) work it out with their off-speed stuff. We have to move the ball in and out, and up and down, a little better than we have been.”

Against a Titan team that played shoddy defense for the second game in a row --- the losers committed five errors on Tuesday and four more on Thursday --- the Wildkits struck for four runs in the 1st inning.

Throwing errors by losing pitcher Brad Crawford and shortstop Jamie Rasmussen combined with four walks, a hit batter and the only hit in the inning for ETHS, an RBI single by Kalil, gave the hosts a four-run cushion right at the start.

Cryns singled and came around to score via fielder’s choice, stolen base and a throwing error in the 3rd. The Wildkits added three more runs in the 5th and tallied three in 6th with a pair of doubles by Eron Vega serving as the offensive highlights. Vega drove in three runs after being demoted to the No. 6 slot in the batting order and Kalil also had a pair of hits for the winners.

Grimm earned his second straight win on the mound, striking out six and permitting five hits in his stint.