The Nanaimo Pirates might have been a little overconfident against the Parksville Royals, but it didn’t matter – they won anyway.
The Hub City Paving Pirates (26-7) beat the last-placed Royals (8-23) on Wednesday in Parksville by a 2-0 score.
“It wasn’t Pirate baseball, it wasn’t what we wanted to accomplish when we came out to the field, but it was good enough,” said Doug Rogers, Pirates manager. “Every now and again this happens. They get one run, the pitcher’s dealing on the mound a little bit, they feel confident that we can hold the fort with a run or two.”
That was the case Wednesday as starter Alex Rogers cruised, scattering three hits and one walk and striking out 11 in a complete game.
He said his goal was to get a strike with his first pitch of every Royals at-bat.
“I was pretty good at that today,” he said. “After getting strike one you can mix around with pitches and kind of play around with how they’re going to swing. So I was feeling really confident out there.”
He got all the run support he needed in the fourth inning when Nate Odgers hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Griffin Andreychuk. Nate Odgers finished with two RBIs, Brady Rogers was 2-for-2 and Bryan Odgers hit a double.
"Especially playing a lesser team, we think that by getting just one run, we can coast right through the rest of the game," Alex Rogers said. "But we've got to check ourselves to make sure that that doesn't happen, because any team can beat any team in this game."
BASE LINES … The Pirates play the North Shore Twins (13-15) on Saturday (June 30) in North Vancouver, then play the Victoria Eagles (16-21) on Sunday down the Malahat.
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