Key Takeaways: Catfish lose 16-6 by mercy rule at Jackson Rockabillys

Cape's Wes Gingerich follows his drive during a Wednesday, June 26, 2024 game between the Cape Catfish and the Burlington Bees at Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

In Thursday’s loss to the Jackson Rockabillys, the offense looked to be the hero early, but the pitching undid everything that the front end had worked to build.

In a 16-6 loss in seven innings to Jackson, in an all-important South Division clash, the Rockabillys again took full advantage of the wishy-washy pitching staff of the Catfish.

After a shootout start between the two sides, with the Catfish taking a 5-4 lead into the fifth inning, Cape called upon recent high school graduate Drew Wedgeworth to pitch the bottom of the fifth.

Beginning the season with a 1.93 ERA heading into Thursday’s matchup, Wedgeworth carried a great reputation as such a young talent pitching a great season of relief ball for the Fish.

But in just 0.2 innings thrown on Thursday, Wedgeworth earned seven runs as the Rockabillys ran away with it in the fifth, going from down a run to up 11-5 going into the sixth.

With a four-run start from Dylan Peck, giving up five hits in four innings pitched, Jackson controlled offensively for nearly the entire game Thursday, putting up crooked numbers all throughout the game.

One more time, the defense came back to bite the Catfish in the seventh as the once-daunting Isaac Vedder couldn’t record an out before earning five runs to usher in a mercy-rule win for the Rockabillys.

Scoring double-digit runs in back-to-back games, Jackson has opened up a can of worms previously unseen from this Catfish team.

For the first time all season, Cape allowed double-digit runs on Wednesday. Then, it turned right around and did the same thing Thursday.

So far in this second half of the season, the Catfish are allowing 10.3 runs per game after establishing a reputation for being one of the most well-rounded pitching staffs in the league.

Moving into the tough second-half grind, in need of a big rally to get into a playoff spot a month from now, the Catfish need to do some soul-searching on the mound.

With a third and final matchup against Jackson, Cape has a chance to get back to .500 for the second half, but it’ll be reliant on the ability to recoup in the bullpen.

Offensively, Cape put together a strong performance but never got anymore close to filling in the crater that the pitching staff created in the final few frames.

Once again, the Catfish got on the board early, led by a huge second inning that took the Fish from down two runs in the first inning to up 4-2 in the second.

Perhaps best emphasized by a Steven Schneider single off the top of Jackson’s aptly-titled “Blue Monster” in left, even without some puck luck, Cape still pout some numbers on the board.

It tailed off in later innings, but putting six runs across in any given game, especially in seven innings, is a good showing from your offense, and Cape continued that on Thursday.

JJ Williams and Owen Mandler each notched two hits in the loss for Cape, while Hayden Nazarenus cracked a seventh-inning homer to pull Cape back into the running late.

As opposed to a disappointing start to the half for the pitching staff, the offense has scored an impressive 8.3 runs per game to begin the second half.

That includes nine runs per game against the Jackson Rockabillys, one of the top in-division rivals that will certainly be in the running for the second-half title.

While it doesn’t reflect positively right now, Cape’s on an upward trajectory that could help it push for a playoff spot, and the offense has been the driving force behind that for a while now.