Jun. 27—The Owensboro RiverDawgs found pitches to hit against Paducah on Saturday at Chautauqua Park.
The RiverDawgs shut out Paducah 11-0 in seven innings in an OVL game.
The RiverDawgs plated four runs in the fourth inning to break the game open. Trevor Davis’ double to left scored PJ Barry, who singled to start the inning.
Kail Hill walked, stole two bases and scored on Tucker Hagan’s single after Hayden Hirschvogel’s sacrifice to left field brought in Davis.
Hirschvogel doubled in the fifth inning and scored on Hill’s groundout.
The RiverDawgs scored three in the sixth inning to get to mercy rule territory. Steven Diaz walked to start the inning and scored on a Hagan single. Hagan scored on Barry’s single. Kyle Hogwood reached on a fielder’s choice and scored from third on a fielder’s choice by Hirschvogel.
Hill hadn’t been up to the plate before Saturday and he made it count with a 2-run home run to put the RiverDawgs up 3-0. Davis had reached on a walk before Hill’s home run in the second inning.
The RiverDawgs struck in the opening inning when Hagan singled, stole second, went to third on Hirschvogel’s single to left, and scored from third on an error.
Hagan finished 3-for-4 with three RBIs.
“We swung the bat really well,” RiverDawgs manager Vic Evans said. “Kail Hill in just his second start goes yard there, he’s a dual guy who hasn’t been getting a lot of playing time because he’s been pitching a lot, we wanted to get him some at-bats. He’s more of a defensive guy, but he ran into one and hit it out of the yard for his first hit of the year.
“Up and down the lineup we swung it well and played well. We had a really good approach at the plate tonight. We were aggressive but lately we’ve been hitting pitcher’s pitches in hitter’s counts, we get a 2-0 count and we hit a strike, but it’s not a strike we can drive. We waited and got our pitch we could drive and did damage with it.”
Pitcher Aric Lyons was good in six innings for the RiverDawgs, striking out seven and giving up four hits.
“Aric Lyons was so good on the mound, he had seven strikeouts in six innings,” Evans said. “His fastball was good, his splitter was good, that’s really kind of his out pitch. He got ahead in the count.”
The RiverDawgs dropped an 8-6 decision to Madisonville on Friday after falling behind 6-1.
“A couple of games we’ve lost we haven’t minimized,” Evans said. “When the other team has got a rally going, we haven’t made the pitch to minimize it. Instead of giving up two we give up five. Last night we got down 6-1 and scratched our way back and fought all the way to the end.
“We’ve just got to see if we can put three good games together.”
PADUCAH000 000 0 — 0 5 1
OWENSBORO120 413 x — 11 9 1
WP-Lyons. LP-Gross. 2B-Hirschvogel, Davis (O). Brown (P). HR-Hill (O).