Brewers' Hurler Lowers ERA Drastically

On a previous outing, Thomas Keeling, a thin tall 22 yr old left-hander pitcher for the Helena Brewers walked 7 batters in one inning, and gave up a couple of hits as well, with 6 runs being scored. That meant his earned run average was a whopping 54.00, which should warn you that statistics with small samples are hazardous for many purposes. He walked three more Mustangs to start the bottom of the 6th inning, including a couple of wild pitches and managed to get out of the inning with only one run scoring when some of the Mustangs started swinging more wildly than Keeling was throwing, and the Helena right fielder, I think it was John Bivens, throwing out Cristobal Rodriguez, a recent addition to the Mustangs roster, as he tried to score on a sacrifice fly to right, to complete a 9-2 double play.

To his credit, Keeling came out for a couple more innings and managed to get the Mustangs out 1-2-3 in the 7th, and then struck out the side in the bottom of the 8th. So his ERA dropped from 54.00 for one inning to 21.00 for 3 innings and even lower after that last inning:  whatever 7 runs in 4/9 of a complete game is, probably around 15.00 or 16.00. Pretty good work for three innings. We left at the end of the 5th inning, as the sun was starting to creep into our location, and we are delicate creatures of course, and the Mustangs had a good lead.

So this is from Joe Bloch, ace announcer for the Mustangs. The Mustangs are ahead in the 9th, 9-4, with one out and the Brewers manage to load the bases and Porfirio Martinez is trying desperately to get some outs. Two outs and bases still loaded. Cody Hawn, Pioneer League leader in RBIs, comes to bat and Mr Martinez strikes him out with the bases loaded. The Mustangs win their 4th game in a row and move up to 2 games behind Helena.

Tanner Robles started the game, was very wild, and finally had to be removed when he walked three guys in a row, despite having a big lead. Daniel Wolford pitched three runless innings in the middle, and should get the win and Martinez should get the well-earned save. Blaine Howell looked good for two innings too. Right fielder Juan Duran looked good at the plate and the infield turned 3 double plays. These guys are all looking good. Over three thousand again was the attendance including a lot of kids with gloves and hot dogs and a good imitation of collective ADHD, see to the right. They had lots of fun. It might have been a birthday party. Not sure.

I really like the excerpted highlights that Joe Bloch manages to pick out and play at the end of the game. Where did this guy come from? He is the best I've heard I've heard in a long time.