A brave pitching display from Rory Meddick lifted Sunshine to its first win of the season in Baseball Victoria’s Summer League competition.
Going into the match against Geelong, Sunshine coach Grant Weir wasn’t even sure whether Meddick would join the action after the star pitcher was hampered by soreness throughout the week.
But after getting through the warm-up he took the field and proceeded to cause havoc for the Geelong bats.
Meddick pitched the opening eight innings, giving up just one run and helping his side to its 2-1 victory.
“Rory was outstanding,” Weir said. “He was a little sore going in and, in fact, I wrote two line-up cards, one with him pitching and one with him not pitching.
“After the warm-up I didn’t say anything to him and he didn’t say anything to me, so I presumed he was going to pitch.
“He got his pitch count up to about 40 in the first two innings. I thought he wasn’t going to go too far, but he ended up going eight innings, which was an amazing effort.”
With Meddick replaced by Griffin Weir after eight innings, it was up to the off-season recruit to bring the victory home for the Eagles. He retired all six batsmen he threw to, but Weir wasn’t done there. He also got the winning hit for his side in the 10th inning.
After a shaky start to the season, during which Sunshine lost by two runs and one run, Weir said it was a great feeling to secure the club’s first win since being promoted.
“We’re extremely happy and relieved.
“Last week, we led going into the ninth inning and lost in extra inning, and against Geelong we led going into the eighth inning and they were able to tie it up so I was thinking, not this again.
“We hung tough the whole day, and I’m really proud of the boys.”
Sunshine will now turn its attention to a round four Sunday clash with Preston.
After two games, Preston holds a 1-2 record and is on the ladder’s bottom rung.
Weir says he’s looking to get some improvement out of his side’s batting in the coming weeks.
“We’ve probably had more batting training than any club in the competition, but the pitching is tough,” he said.
“It’s a big step up from division 2 to division1, especially the second and third pitchers on each team.
“Last year, everyone had a good first pitcher, but after that they really struggled.
“It’s not the case now. Competing against that depth is going to take us a little while to catch up.”
