Tough Night For Tornado
Pitching for the Butler baseball team is at a premium this week.
With four games in four days and a thin staff to begin with because of injury, Golden Tornado coach Cody Herald simply ran out of arms in a 12-0, six-inning loss to North Allegheny Monday night at Michelle Krill Field at Historic Pullman Park.
Starter Simon Brown pitched well early until North Allegheny struck for four runs in the top of the fourth — all with two outs — to break the game wide open.
Brown gave up a run in the top of the first, but cruised through the second and third innings and threw a filthy curveball to get Trevor Freyvogel looking for the second out in the frame with a runner on second.
But a walk and three straight hits — a RBI single, two-run triple, and RBI double — turned a tight game into a 5-0 North Allegheny lead.
“He did a good job grinding innings out for us and keeping us in the game,” Herald said of Brown, who struck out three and walked three in four innings of work.
“It was a common theme pretty much the whole time,” Herald added. “The one thing he needs to work on is repeating making good pitches. There was times he had people 0-2, 1-2 and the next thing you know it's 3-2.”
Butler (4-9, 2-4) was without senior Josh Grigoletti, who dislocated his pitching shoulder against North Allegheny in the first meeting and may also be without ace left-hander Colby Anderson, who is battling elbow discomfort.
“We're hoping that the soreness goes away and it's nothing big because, of course, we're going to need him this week,” Herald said.
Down 1-0, Butler's best chance against North Allegheny starter Anthony Hattrup came in the bottom of the third.
Cooper Baxter and Anderson each singled, but Hattrup got out of it.
“Can't say enough about what Hattrup did tonight,” said North Allegheny coach Andrew Heck. “That was awesome.”
Hattrup got stronger as the night went on for North Allegheny (11-5, 5-2).
The right-hander struck out the last four batters he faced, going five innings, striking out seven, walking one and giving up three hits.
Brown had two of them, including a double.
Heck removed Hattrup after a long top of the sixth inning at 75 pitches as a steady rain began to fall.
“It's almost better to throw a fresh guy out there in that situation,” Heck said. “I always push for guys to go get complete-game shutouts, but at the same time, we have to be smart about it.”
Butler had to be smart about the rest of the week after Brown left.Shane McIntire went one inning, giving up three runs in the fifth. Cooper Baxter pitched 2/3 of an inning and David Leslie struck out the only batter he faced.“We went with some young guys,” Herald said. “It was a good chance to throw them in some no-pressure situations. But we still saw some of that pressure. We preach to them, 'Hey, listen. You're young. We don't expect you to go out and light it up. This is good experience and you're going to learn from it.' They just have to relax. That's all it is.”Butler won't have much chance to relax in the coming days after having 11 days off before Monday because of rain.The Golden Tornado play at Allderdice Tuesday at 7 p.m., then at La Roche College against Central Catholic Wednesday afternoon before traveling to Pine-Richland Thursday afternoon.“We're going to wake up (Tuesday) and have another one,” Herald said. “I told them, 'Welcome to the grind.'”North Allegheny 100 434 x — 12 12 0Butler 000 000 x — 0 4 1W: Anthony Hattrup 5IP (7K, 1BB). L: Simon Brown 4IP (3K, 3BB).North Allegheny (11-5, 5-2): CJ Weller 3-1B RBI, Logan Andreyko 3B 2-RBI, Jared Orwell 2B RBI, Cole Young 1B, Shane Murphy 1B 2-2B RBI, Trevor Freyvogel 2-RBI, Joey Colella 3B 2B 3-RBI, Matt Direnzo 1BButler (4-9, 2-4): Colby Anderson 1B, Brown 2B 1B, Cooper Baxter 1BTuesday: Butler at Allderdice
