Millburn Baseball Wins Fourth Straight

The Miller baseball team took advantage of a poor defensive showing on Monday by the Cougars and ran wild on the bases at Underhill Field, winning their fourth consecutive game, 7-3, over Columbia.

Columbia allowed 10 stolen bases, without throwing out a runner, and made multiple fielding errors in the game. Only four of Millburn’s seven runs were earned.

“That’s always our game plan,” said Millburn head coach Brian Chapman. “I said it before the season, we’re going to run, challenge teams to stop us, we’re going to try and put the ball in play and run and be aggressive and put pressure on teams. I think that’s how you’re successful offensively.”

With runners on second and third in the top half of the third inning in a 3-3 game, Miller second baseman, Jeff Fisher, dropped in a two-run single to shallow right field, putting Millburn up for good. The Millers tacked on two more runs behind an RBI infield single by Ian Barry in the fourth and on a two-out RBI pinch hit single by Clayton Elder in the seventh.

The Blue and White bats did not waste any time getting things started, picking up right where they left off, scoring 21 runs in two games on Saturday. An error on Columbia’s second baseman, followed base hits from Danny Frischman and Barry got Millburn on the board up 1-0.

“Ever since the runs in the Krug tournament, we’ve just picked it up and have just kind of run with that -- everyone from one through nine,” Barry said. “We’re confident but there’s a lot more games ahead of us. This is our first win in conference but we still have some work to get done.”

An errant throw from Columbia‘s catcher, trying to throw out a would-be base-stealer at second, sailed into centerfield and allowed Frischman to come around for Millburn’s second run. An RBI single to centerfield by freshman shorts stop Milo Freeman put Millburn up 3-0 after one inning.

“We’re not playing well defensively. We won Saturday and we won on Friday last week, but we’ve been a little shaky defensively,” said CHS head coach Lorenzo Busichio. “It’s [the base-stealing] a concern. Our catchers have been doing a very good job the past couple of years, and Rony has been OK early on. But he threw the ball bad today so we have to see if there’s something the matter there, because we can’t have people running all over the bases on us.”

Columbia was able to get right back into the game in the next half of the inning, getting Henry Ertl and Jimmy Murphy on base to start things off. With two out and two on, Matt McGriff drilled a long ball to deep centerfield that bounced off of the heel of Millburn’s centerfielder’s glove, allowing two runs to come in. Aaron Brown knocked in McGriff from second base to tie the score at three.

But the three runs was all Millburn’s pitcher, Frischman would allow. He limited the Cougars to just three more hits and six more base runners overall through the next six innings.

“It starts with pitching like it always does. Danny got himself into a little bit of a rut in the first inning. He was working a little slowly, he seemed almost unsure of himself, he had a real high pitch count in that first inning,” Chapman said. “He went out in the second inning and he single handedly turned the game around by just picking up the pace a little bit and throwing strikes.”

Columbia’s best chance to chip away at Millburn’s lead came in the bottom of the third, where the first three Columbia hitters (Nathan Tessler, Rony Jean-Mary and Matt McGriff) all reached base, setting up a bases loaded and no outs situation. Columbia’s next batter grounded out to third (not allowing the runners to score), the next struck out swinging and the last grounded out as well. In total, the Cougars stranded six runners on base.

“That has been the story of our season,” Busichio said. “We had bases loaded against Bloomfield, we had bases loaded against St. Mary’s, we actually won that game, and we had bases loaded today. We’re not getting the big hit. That will come, but you can’t make errors.”

“I was just throwing normal fastball, curveball change. I liked how everything was working,” Frischman said. “I think we played well, I think we’re starting to turn the corner. We’re not where we need to be, but we’re headed in the right direction.”

Frischman struck out six Cougars overall, while allowing five hits, four walks and induced two double plays. All three of the runs scored against him were unearned.

Murphy pitched well at times for Columbia, striking out eight, but he also allowed 11 hits in the game and allowed three earned runs.

“He’s fine, he gave up three earned runs. They had a good approach, they swung at the fast ball early,” Busichio said. “But when you make two errors at second, and both of those runs score, and then another run early on that allowed a run to score, what happens is if I’m him, now you start thinking, 'I have to strike everybody out.' Then you start changing your approach as a pitcher.”

Offensively for the Millers, Barry led the way with a three-of-four performance, and two RBI. Will Fitzgerald went two-for-four with two runs scored and Freeman went two-for-three with an RBI.

The Millers improved to 4-2 and are home against East Side Newark on Tuesday. Columbia fell to 2-3 overall and face Montclair on Wednesday.