By Ewen McRae
Sunshine was left to rue two poor innings in the field as it fell to its fourth straight loss of the Baseball Victoria summer baseball season on Saturday.
Coming up against perennial powerhouse Essendon, the Eagles had an early one run lead, but a number of fielding errors in the second gave the visitors the lead and they never relinquished it in a 10-7 win.
Sunshine coach Stuart Clayton said his side performed well for most of the game but couldn’t bridge the gap as the match wore on.
“We got that early lead, and were looking alright,” Clayton said.
“But they got batters on base in the second, and a couple of fielding errors gave them the lead, and then there were a couple of walks in the third and before we knew it, we were 5-1 down. From there every time we got a couple they got a couple straight back, so those early runs killed us in the end.”
Photo Gallery: Sunshine vs Essendon
Sunshine started with Griffin Weir on the mound, before youngster Lachie Ruyter took over through the middle of the game as the home side tried to get into the contest.
With the start of mid-week games this week, the Eagles were wary of tiring out their pitching stocks and rotated the pitcher heavily as Essendon grabbed runs as they needed them.
The Eagles hitters were impressive at the plate as they continued to score and keep the chance of a win alive.
Clayton said there were plenty of positives to take out of the loss, and with the mid-week games to test the pitching depth of all teams he was confident the Eagles had enough options on the mound to get some much-needed wins.
“We’re improving in key parts of our game,” Clayton said.
“We get a pitcher [Jeremy Young] back next week who’s been away with the Australian under 23 side, and been pitching really well over in Colombia, so that’s a handy pick-up as we get to this stage of the year.
“We’re hoping our variety in pitching will help us, and with a few others to come back in the next few weeks we hope that will be the turnaround to set us up for the remainder of the season.”
