If you happened to swing by Hyde Stadium Thursday through Sunday to catch a Zap game, you were treated to an avalanche of offense from the home ball club on each occasion. The Oahe Zap hosted the Capital City Aviators for a four-game series over the weekend, and they took all four games handedly. However, it wasn’t the W/L column from the series that was impressive, it was the amount of offensive production they generated that had everyone in awe.
Over the four contests, Zap outscored Capital City at a clip of 47-2. Quick math will tell you that is a run differential of a whopping +45 which in baseball is truly admirable.
The series started Thursday night with Cy Taylor carrying a perfect game bid into the sixth before surrendering a walk as his team took home the 14-0 win in a mercy rule effort. Taylor would go a full seven innings giving up just one hit and the lone walk mentioned before. In game two, the Zap would again post double-digits in the runs column winning 13-1 that included a grand slam from catcher and part-time color commentator Garin Gledhill. The only run surrendered by the Zap was from an error in the middle of the game, so it would go unearned.
With the series split in hand, the Zap would win it outright in game three winning 10-1 thanks to fan-favorite Ty Farwell driving in half of their runs.
All of the offense was a boost for the Zap, but the most impressive performance came on Sunday from Pierre native Ridge Leimbach who threw a seven-inning no hitter in his teams 10-0 victory (seven inning run-rule). Leimbach would surrender 8 walks in his 7.0 innings pitched, but he struck out 8 as well while not letting any Aviators land a hit. To say manager Jamy Haberger was excited would be an understatement, “I am just so proud of my guys and the way they were able to stay consistent and continue to keep the hits coming. It’s easy when you’re winning games at deficits that large to lay back and think you’ve got them. But that’s a good team over there in Capital City, so we knew we needed to be sharp, and I would like to think we were,” as he finished his thought with a slight grin.
The Zap will take this momentum into a long stretch of baseball starting tonight on the road against the Casper Spuds. We will have coverage of their Friday night game against Capital City on River 92.7 and DRGnews.com.
Comments