Swinchock leads Carmichaels to Game 1 win in championship series
CARMICHAELS – Scott Swinchock might have been late arriving, but he didn’t waste any time “cutting” down the opposition once he got on the field. Swinchock had a hand in every phase of the game, pitching a three-hit shutout, scoring a run, and batting in another, as Carmichaels collared Mario’s, 3-0, in the opening game of the Fayette County Baseball League’s best-of-seven playoff championship series.
Game two will be played Sunday at Leckrone, starting at 3 p.m., with Monday’s action going back to Carmichaels (5:45), and alternating daily until somebody wins four games.
Swinchock works in Southpointe and got caught in traffic driving to the game. He didn’t arrive until five minutes before the game was due to start.
Manager Dickie Krause said, “I had his name penciled in to start, then when he was late arriving, I began to wonder, but he got here in time.”
Swinchock walked just two batters, Brad Baker in the first and Jason Greene in the seventh, plus getting seven on strikes. He allowed only three singles, to Scott Van Sickle leading off the game, Josh McMillen in the fourth and Baker in the seventh. Only Van Sickle, Greene, and Baker got as far as second base.
In one stretch, from the start of the second inning to the end of the sixth, Swinchock faced the minimum 15 batters. McMillen singled with one out in the fourth, but was cut down stealing, to keep the 15-up-and-15-down string going.
Swinchock said, “I was just trying to throw strikes, that’s the big thing in the game, to throw strikes and get ahead of the batters.”
His best pitch was a “cut fastball,” which, he explained, “works on the order of a slider, but when I throw it I don’t have to twist my wrist. I throw it something like passing a football. It was really working today.”
Krause called Swinchock “very good, a big game pitcher, and a real plus on the mound, getting us that first and all important win.
“The first game in any series is always the important one. We knew coming in that Chris Brunson is a good pitcher, and he made us work for the win, something we can expect the entire series. Our series with Rostraver worked out in such a way that we could start Scott today. At the same time, Mario’s had a long layoff from the time their series ended until we played today, and that could have worked against them.”
Mario’s manager Lou Pasquale observed, “You won’t win games if you don’t score runs, and while we gave up only three, we didn’t score any. Chris has been a very dependable pitcher all season and he gave us a good game today, but we didn’t get him any runs. We couldn’t get on base, and when we did we didn’t hit them past second. Swinchock threw an excellent game, he had us biting at his pitches the whole game.”
Carmichaels had eight hits, including Lee Fritz’s double and single, Jeff Thompson a double, and Swinchock and Vince Zapotosky two singles.
Fritz led off the home end of the game with a double, then Brunson got six in a row, all in the infield, and after Zapotosky singled to open the third, Brunson set down seven more until the fifth, when Carmichaels got what turned out to be all the margin it would need. Swinchock singled with one out and moved around on hits by Zapotosky and Fritz.
Two insurance runs crossed in the sixth. With one out, Duane Dupont singled and scored on Thompson’s double to left-center, and Swinchock singled in Thompson.
Pasquale had a reminder for his players as they left the field, noting “now we have to play from behind.”