Herriage Dominates In Win Over Cardinals
5/19/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 19, 2011
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Tyler Herriage tied a season high with eight strikeouts in seven shutout innings and the Lumberjack offense helped him out just enough in picking up a 2-0 win over Lamar on Thursday at Jaycees Field.
SFA (33-20, 19-12 SLC) has now won its last three games and got a 4-for-4 day from Darren Crabtree and a 3-for-4 afternoon from Hunter Dozier as part of a 12-hit attack against Cardinal (28-24, 14-17 SLC) starter Blake Ford.
Herriage allowed just two singles and walked one batter in his seven innings on the hill, his longest outing since March 4, to earn his third victory of the season. Alex Moshier struck out one and allowed one hit in 1.1 innings of setup relief before Jason West used just six pitches to get the final two outs of the game and earn his ninth save of the year.
Ford struck out six and walked two, but pitched with runners on base throughout the afternoon, putting the leadoff man on base in five of his eight innings of work. He took the loss to fall to 6-4 on the year.
With the win the Lumberjacks will stay in sole possession of second place in the Southland Conference with just two games remaining in the regular season.
Herriage struck out seven of the first nine hitters he faced, including each of the first four batters of the game. He allowed just a single in the second inning and one more in the sixth, which was coupled with a walk and two wild pitches to pose the only true jam of the day for the senior left-hander. But he was able to work out of that jam, needing 104 pitches to navigate through his seven frames.
The SFA offense, meanwhile, got the leadoff runner on in three of the first four innings but was unable to convert anything into runs until the bottom of the sixth. Consecutive singles from Crabtree and Jarid Scarafiotti to open up the inning got things going, and after the `Jacks were unable to sacrifice bunt the runners over, Dozier delivered an RBI double to the right-center field fence that plated Crabtree from second base and put SFA out in front.
Herriage and Moshier then each shut down the Cardinals in order in the seventh and eighth innings before Crabtree delivered a leadoff homer, his fifth bomb of the year, to right field to open the bottom of the eighth inning and give the `Jacks some breathing room with a 2-0 advantage.
It was needed too, as the Cardinals managed to make things tough on the SFA bullpen in the top of the ninth, putting the tying runners on base with just two outs and prompting the `Jacks to go to West. The Lumberjack stopper then shut the door on the Cardinals' chances, getting Joey Latulippe to fly out to left and Jeff Abt to ground one to Dozier at shortstop to end the game.
SFA will go after its fourth win in a row and try to clinch the series from the Cardinals on Friday in the second game of the series. Jared West is slated to get the ball for the `Jacks, with Zach Boulanger slated to go for the Cardinals. First pitch is scheduled for 2:00 p.m.
-SFA-
