A’s break long winning streak
Posted: July 15, 2013
The hard-charging Sheboygan A’s tore through their first two opponents in a busy four-game weekend before running into a couple brick-wall opponents on Sunday in the Wisconsin State League Challenge.
The team manager said he’s hoping a pair of losses on Sunday — which snapped the A’s 14-game winning streak — would be no more than a blip on the radar for a team looking to keep running through the second half of the season and into two league playoff brackets in just a few weeks.
“Right now is the best time to be playing your best baseball, which we are right now — today was just a little setback,” A’s manager Tyler Martin said shortly after his team dropped a 5-2 decision to the Kenosha Kings on Sunday. Sheboygan lost to the Lombard Orioles 1-0 earlier that day. “… We’re definitely carrying some good momentum into the second half of the season.”
Sheboygan hosted the Wisconsin State League Challenge this weekend. The league agreed to hold the unique event — not a tournament, but a 12-game intra-league gauntlet in which every WSL team played four games — after the Manitowoc Bandits dropped out of the league last season, threatening to cut into each team’s schedule this year. The three-day event aimed at bolstering teams’ calendars.
The A’s breezed through their earliest games in the Challenge on Friday and Saturday, when the team handled the Oshkosh Giants and Addison Braves in 13-1 and 8-3 decisions, respectively, for their 13th and 14th straight wins.
The A’s scored three runs in the second inning and led the rest of the way in Saturday’s win over Addison. Harry Steldt finished the win with three hits.
But Sheboygan faced a considerably steeper challenge in Sunday’s doubleheader. Lombard had entered the Challenge leading the WSL, with Kenosha sitting second in the standings.
Sheboygan fell behind Kenosha early after giving up a pair of runs in the bottom of the second inning. The Kings scored three more in the fourth to take a 5-0 lead before Sheboygan finally got on the board in the seventh — and final — inning, when two players reached home on wild pitches.
“Our pitching is holding up,” Denny Moyer, Sheboygan’s general manager, said Sunday. “We just didn’t hit the ball today. We just ran into two good pitchers.”
Martin agreed, saying his players “just didn’t swing it as well as we have been” against Lombard and Kenosha.
“But our effort’s been really good and it’s been fun,” he said. “I mean, we’ve been playing good baseball, so I’ve had absolutely no complaints with the way we’ve been playing lately.”
Before Sunday, the A’s hadn’t lost since dropping an 8-7 game to Manitowoc on June 25.
Sheboygan is scheduled to host Racine Kiwanis at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Wildwood Baseball Park.
The team is slated to launch into the Frank Langsdorf Baseball League of Southeastern Wisconsin playoffs later this month. The Northeastern Wisconsin Baseball League playoffs won’t start until August. The WSL doesn’t hold a playoff.
The A’s now hold a 25-17 overall record. Sheboygan’s 14-game run helped the team rebound from a rough stretch earlier this season, and Martin said he’s hopeful the lineup can keep the fire burning through the end of this month.
“I think that we were kind of a little down early when we were under .500,” Martin said. “But we regrouped and guys kind of refocused and we got on a roll and it’s fun. And I think everybody’s confidence individually and collectively really picked up.”
Story by: The Sheboygan Press
The Sheboygan A's are members of the Wisconsin State League and Northeastern Wisconsin Baseball League. The A's have helped develop more than 43 players that have reached professional baseball, including 2002 World Series Champion Jarrod Washburn (Anaheim Angels). All Sheboygan A's home games are played at Wildwood Baseball Park in Sheboygan. Connect with the A's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
