Olsen, Red Sox shut down Baby Steelers 8-1

Location, location, location.

For any business, location is the most important ingredient in a recipe for success.

On Wednesday night, Spring City left hander Mike Olsen had great control of his stuff in an 8-1 win over league rival Pottstown, but that paled in comparison to the uncanny ability of the Red Sox batters to drop the ball in, around and behind the Baby Steelers' defense.

“Sometimes it’s not how hard you it, but where,” said Red Sox first basemen Andy Lovre-Smith, who was 3-for-3 on the night with a run scored. “I kept getting curveballs from him (Steelers hurler Tyler Gebhard) so I just stayed back on it and tried to drive it, we did have a lot of hits fall in tonight, but that’s part of the game.”

Spring City (4-0 league, 7-1 overall) got on the board in the first as Connor Murphy (3-for-4, run scored, 2RBI) found the gap for a double, scoring Dave Gulati, who had led off with a walk. The Red Sox added another as Corey Rantz dropped a base hit in behind the infield, scoring Ryan Cass, who reached on a blooper over the bag at third, but left two men on base following a failed suicide squeeze.

“They must have had eight seeing eye hits,” said long time Pottstown manager Pat Sundstrom. “I don’t know what the heck he (Gebhard) could have done about them. He did a great job overall. We need to get the bats going and do a better job hitting the ball, which I know we are capable of. Three hits won’t beat many teams in this league.”

Spring City extended the lead to five in the third inning as they sent seven men to the plate, scoring a run when Matt Yost reached base on a throwing errors and adding two more on a one –out single by Rantz, driving in Lovre-Smith and Yost.

Fourteen year-old Mike Olsen, who allowed just three baby Steelers base runners in the first four innings while striking out two and walking two, worked his way through the Pottstown line up with the skill of a veteran, using his fastball to get ahead in the count, before mixing in his breaking pitches.

“I had a pretty good fastball tonight,” said Olsen. “My defense played great behind me. All I have to do is throw strikes. It’s great to get a win against anyone, but against them it’s bigger. They are big league rivals.”

“We are really fortunate to have five solid starters on this team,” said Red Sox manager Mike Gancasz. “At fourteen, he (Olsen) has really shown that is a very capable pitcher.  It was good to get a win tonight against a league team, but we discussed after the game how important it is to close out a team when have them down.”

Having seen his team run themselves out of two innings and leave four runs on the base baths, the Red Sox skipper was quick to switch gears to focus on the task of playing Boyertown and Phoenixville on Sunday.

“We cost ourselves a couple of runs, but we did close out the game,” added Gancasz. “We have two big games coming up and have to make sure we take advantage of our base runners. I am very proud of the way we have started the season and it seems like they really have a grasp on Red Sox baseball and how we play.”

Ironically it was Olsen’s two strike outs that led to extra base runners and broke up the shut out as both batters reached base on a swinging third strike, as a breaking pitch got by catcher Corey Rantz.

Baby Steelers short stop Jimmy Mullen, who reached on a strike out-throwing error, scored the lone run of the game when brother T.J. Mullen lifted a sacrifice fly to left to end the shut out bid.

Right-hander Matt Yost came in and pitched a scoreless seventh inning in a non save situation, to close out the game for Olsen and Spring City had another win in the books.

“It’s good to start the season 4-0 in the league,” said Lovre-Smith. “We have to stay focused and take it a game at a time. It’s a long season. We have been hitting the ball pretty well and we need to keep doing that to help our pitchers.”   

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

R

H

E

Pottstown

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

1

3

3

Spring City

2

0

3

1

0

2

X

8

13

2

AB

R

H

RBI

Spring-City

AB

R

H

RBI

Hydien lf

3

0

2

0

Gulati ss

3

2

1

1

Brown 1b

3

0

0

0

Murphy rf

4

1

3

2

Mullen ss

2

1

0

0

Cass lf

2

1

1

1

Wallace  rf

2

1

0

0

Lovre-Smith 1b

3

1

3

0

Lafferty 2b

2

0

1

0

Yost rf

4

1

0

1

Mullen 3b

1

0

0

1

Rantz c

3

0

2

3

Wise cf

3

0

0

0

Conroy 3b

3

0

1

0

Gebhard p

2

0

0

0

Carter cf

3

0

0

0

Wallace c

3

0

0

0

Olsen p

2

1

1

0

Ferguson ph

0

0

0

0

Zoller ph

1

1

1

0

Mauger ph

0

0

0

0

Butera rf

0

0

0

0

Weyfel ph

1

0

0

0

Robinson ph

1

0

0

0

Totals

23

1

3

1

Totals

28

8

13

8

IP

R

ER

H

SO

BB

Gebhard     (L )

6

8

6

13

2

2

Olsen (W 2-0)

6

1

0

3

4

2

Yost

1

0

0

0

0

2

2B-Murphy 3B-none   HR- none       LOB- Pottstown-7     Spring-City-7 

time of the game 2:13       game temp 92 degrees