River Monsters roughed up on the road by Abbotsford

Murphy’s Law plagued the Rhinelander River Monsters last Friday night in Dairyland League play at Abbotsford. The Merchants jumped on Rhinelander for six runs over the first two innings and cruised to a 10-0 victory.

Between defensive mistakes, struggles on offense and injuries, Rhinelander manager Todd Johnson said it was just one of those nights at the ball park. 

“Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” he said. 

The Monsters committed three errors that led to three unearned runs, helping to spoil the pitching debut of Lucas O’Brien, who was touched up for nine runs on 10 hits over 5 1/3 innings. He had four walks and three strikeouts. 

Abbotsford scored four times in the first as Tanner Hraby reached on an error eventual took home on a double steal with Blake Jacobi. Jacobi later scored on a wild pitch and the Merchants strung together one-out hits by Payton Schreiber, Blake Bargender and Brett Nelson to take a 4-0 lead. 

Hraby and Jacobi both singled in the second and scored when Mateo Lopez reached on an error. Hraby added a sacrifice fly in the third and Nelson added another in the fifth. O’Brien was chased after Schieiber hit an RBI double in the sixth followed by a single by Bargender.

Sam Schneider came on in relief and nearly got the Monsters all the way to the ninth by avoiding the run-rule, but a bases-loaded walk to Cole Anderson with two out in the eighth pushed across the clinching run.

“Lucas O’Brien, you know, it was good to get him pitching with us, and he threw decent, but we did not play good defense behind him,” Johnson said. “Really the last couple games, something that I’ve always thought was our strength, was our defense. We just made too many mistakes behind him in the field that could have got us out of innings and didn’t, and then you couple that with some swinging bunts and loopy base hits.”

Hraby, the former Medford standout, struck out eight and scattered three hits over six innings for Abbotsford in the win. JV Castillo gave up two runs and walked three over two more scoreless innings. 

Rhinelander had only five hits in the contest. They stranded runners at the corners in the second after Jesse Robinson led off with a double and Kaden Vanney added a single. Rhinelander loaded the bases with one out in the seventh, but Caden Palubicki went down looking before Martin Hoger lined out to right, ending that threat. Robinson got picked off second to end the eighth with two men aboard. 

“Offensively, we just didn’t seem to catch a break either,” Johnson said. “We didn’t mount much of an offensive attack, but one inning, we had bases loaded and Martin hit a probably the hardest hit ball we hit all night, sort of down the right field line and the guy caught it. So it’s just one of those nights. 

“They certainly have a lot of talent. Tanner was pitching and he pitched well. But Tanner’s not a guy that’s going to throw it by you either. He didn’t walk a lot of guys. He kept everybody sort of off balance and threw strikes and, defensively, they played very well.”

Further compounding Rhinelander’s problems, outfielder Luke Linsmeyer left the game with a lower leg injury in the first inning and did not return. Vanney was scheduled to see some action on the mound Friday, but felt something go amiss in his elbow in pregame warmups. Vanney initially injured the elbow on his throwing arm last summer pitching for the Rhinelander Rebels during the American Legion regionals in Merrill.

“I think we’re four games into this and we’ve probably lost three guys now — two for sure and, you know, waiting to see what happens with Kaden … So, you know, we’ll hopefully get some good news on that front,” Johnson said. “But yeah, We can’t afford to be losing a guy a week, that’s for sure.”

The loss dropped Rhinelander to 1-3, with all three losses coming away from Stafford Field. The River Monsters’ tough road stretch continues Sunday when it travels to Merrill to play a doubleheader with the Rangers. The teams will play two, seven-inning games beginning at noon. 

The Monsters will play two more away from home, June 15 at Whittlesey and July 21 at Everest before a six-game homestand to close out the regular season, beginning June 22 against Marshfield .

“That’ll be nice because it truly is hard to win on the road in this league,” Johnson said.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].