Bucky Schmidt can consider his hitting slump dead and buried.
The Queensway Auto World catcher clubbed a one-out single into the right field gap to score two runs that cinched a 9-7 Prince George Senior Baseball League victory over the Inland Control and Services Tigers Wednesday night at Citizen Field.
The win gave the Red Sox a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five playoff final. They can wrap up the series with a win in Game 3 Friday night.
"I've been struggling a bit at the plate so the hits came at the right time," said Schmidt, who went 3-for-4 with three RBI.
"[Tigers pitcher Scott Atherton] was throwing a lot of off-speed stuff that was curving quite a bit so I just moved up in the box, sat back and they came at the right time. That second one I just laid the bat out there to see if I could drive the gap and got lucky."
Facing the top of the Red Sox order in the sixth inning, Atherton didn't get much help from catcher Chris Clark, who dropped the third strike issued to batter Curtis Sawchuk. Brandon Hunter walked and with one out, Schmidt got his bat on an Atherton fastball to provide the winning margin.
Paul Wilson came within one out of pitching a complete game for the Red Sox, giving up 14 hits through 6 2/3 innings. He finished with six strikeouts.
The Tigers pounded out three runs in the top of the sixth to tie it 7-7.
Cory Therrien took advantage of a bases-loaded situation to bring in two runs when he drove a Wilson pitch to deep centre field and the ball dropped before the speedy Evan Potskin could track it down. Brad Deutch bounced one off the dirt and out of the reach of third baseman Hunter for the tying run.
Trailing by two runs in the seventh, the Tigers had a chance with two men on base and two out when Hunter replaced Wilson. But Hunter got the heavy-hitting Adam Norn to fly out to centre field to end the game.
"I was regretting not putting Hunter in to start the seventh, I put him in a bad spot," said Wilson.
"The Tigers always battle, one through nine, regardless of the score. We got lucky in the first inning when they had [runners on] first and second and hit off the wall and didn't score a run. We had the Bucky of old come through with big clutch hits."
The Sox jumped ahead 3-1 with two runs in the third inning. Curtis Sawchuk, who went the distance for the Sox in a 3-2 win in
Game 1 Tuesday, got it going with a single, Hunter walked and Wilson brought them home with a two-out flare to centre field.
Wilson got himself into a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the Tigers' half of the fourth. He walked Lyle Boutin to score Therrien, and Angelo DeSantis added two more with a blooper to left field, which gave the Tigers a 4-3 lead.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Tigers Jordan Croil came off the bench to play left field and was called into service immediately, making a nice play on a deep fly ball to rob Jason McCarron of a hit. Then with Nolan Schwab aboard and the top of the Sox order coming to bat, Hunter was intentionally walked, and that brought up Potskin, who cleared the bases with a high hit to the wall that bounced out of Croil's glove. Schmidt then tripled to plate Potskin and later scored to make it 7-4 on a wild pitch charged to Atherton.
"Both games we beat ourselves," said Atherton.
"We've played with them the whole first two games. We had more hits and we had more errors and that's the definition of beating ourselves. We were in it the whole time. It was just tough, they're good ball players. It's an uphill battle now, but we're not out of it yet."
If needed, the series will continue next week with games Tuesday and Wednesday.
"I like our chances of wrapping it up Friday," said Wilson.
