Monsters fend off Marshfield, win third straight

The Rhinelander River Monsters didn’t have their best stuff offensively on Sunday, but took advantage when opportunities presented themselves to move above .500 in the Dairyland League.

Kent Mathews pitched seven strong innings and the Monsters scored three times amid a sequence of defensive gaffes in the sixth inning to pull away to a 6-2 victory over the Marshfield Chaparrals at Stafford Field. 

A week after not striking out a single time in a 3-1 win over Minocqua, the River Monsters were fanned 16 times by a quartet of Marshfield pitchers, but still got enough pitching and defense to overcome a so-so day at the plate.

“A W is a W in this league. That’s what we talked about after the game,” River Monsters manager Todd Johnson said afterward. “Too many strikeouts on our part, but we had good, solid defense which is one thing I think you can always count on with this team, is the defense. But we’ve got to get better. The at-bats weren’t good today.”

    Rhinelander’s AJ Berg reacts after hitting an RBI double during the fifth inning of a Dairyland League baseball game against Marshfield at Stafford Field Sunday, June 23. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Down 1-0 after spotting the Chaparrals a run in the top of the first, the River Monsters drew level in the fifth as Tyler Blomdahl led off with a single, stole second and then scored after AJ Berg smacked a 3-2 curveball off the fence in left field. Kurt Zuiker walked and Quinn Lamers bunted for a base hit to load the bases with nobody out before Easton Senoraske rolled a ground ball to short, driving in Berg to give Rhinelander the lead. Zuiker also came around on the play after Marshfield’s attempt to double up Senoraske at first sailed long. 

That was a sign of things to come for the Marshfield defense, which committed three errors on a single play to give Rhinelander a five-run lead in the sixth. 

The Monsters had runners at first and second with two outs after Zuiker reached on a dropped third strike to keep the inning alive. Lamers then hit a ground ball to second that was mishandled by Marshfield’s Will Lee. With a play at first gone, Lee tried to fire home to throw out Josh Randolph, but that throw was late and to the backstop. Zuiker sprinted home on the overthrow and was hit above the shoulders on a throw back to the plate by catcher Ben Dietsche, allowing Lamers to make a break for home and score amid the commotion. 

It was a fortunate sequence of events for the Monsters, but one that likely would not have happened if Rhinelander wasn’t aggressive on the base paths with Zuiker facing a 2-2 count. 

“I told Josh to go on that pitch,” Johnson said of his directive to have Randolph attempt to steal second on the play. “I think that helped because the next pitch was a low strike to Kurt, which the catcher was seeing Josh go. I think that helped Kurt get to first. Then of course, after that, we scored a bunch of runs. That was huge.”

Marshfield struck early against Mathews as Isaiah Baierl singled, stole second and scored on a Kenny Schultz double to left to give the Chaparrals a 1-0 lead before the first out of the game was recorded. Mathews, in his third appearance of the summer, settled in from there, sitting down the next six batters. 

Mathews scattered six hits over seven innings, allowing just a run with four walks and six strikeouts.

He got Dietsche looking on a 2-2 pitch in the seventh to get out of a bases loaded jam. Marshfield’s only other real threat came in the fifth as Zuiker made a diving catch in center to rob Riley Bauman of a potential two-run double to end the inning.

“Going back to that Everest game, you could see Kent knocking the rust off and he’s just getting better and better,” Johnson said, referencing Mathews’s last start June 8 against the Merchants. “The great thing about Kent is he never wants to come out. It seems like he gets stronger as the game goes on. I think at the end of seven, it was time to bring Quinn in to shut that down.”

Lamers pitched the final two innings, allowing a run on a two-out RBI single by Cole Hediger in the eighth. 

The River Monsters (4-4, 4-3 Dairyland Large) return to action this Sunday at Wisconsin Rapids. Rhinelander will look to avenge a season-opening 12-10 loss to the Red Hawks in which they relinquished a 9-6 lead after six innings. 

“Rapids is sort of the class of our division here but, depending on who’s able to make it next week, we’ll be fine,” Johnson said. “Any time we can get the majority of our team there, we will compete with anybody.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].