PERRYSBURG — Perrysburg’s Jim Leyland Field saw a good old-fashioned pitchers’ duel between Perrysburg sophomore southpaw Tyler Palmer and two Napoleon pitchers, junior Parker Woods and senior Tyler Diemer, on Friday.
Palmer won the battle, 1-0, striking out four, walking two, and allowing three hits over seven innings while throwing 82 pitches, including 57 strikes to 26 batters.
“He throws really well,” Perrysburg coach Dave Hall said. “He threw well as a freshman, he threw well this year. He just knows how to pitch. He puts the ball where he wants it.”
Palmer said he has a strategy before not just every game, but every inning.
“Honestly, start them with strikes — not a lot of strikeouts — I trust my defense behind me, start ahead in the counts, and my main goal is to get the first out of every inning every single time — that is what I go for,” Palmer said.
While Hall calls Palmer a pure pitcher, it’s been a craft the Perrysburg sophomore honed in his early days as a youth, and he’s worked hard on his own time to try to perfect the craft as well as possible.
“I think I taught myself, actually, because I’m a lefty and the rest of my family are rightys,” Palmer said. “I’ve been pitching since before I can even remember, (age) 5, 6, 7, and started travel ball at 8U.”
Napoleon coach Eric Sprague said his team was unable to make the necessary adjustments at the plate, and even though nine balls reached the outfield, none found enough of a gap to make any real difference.
“Give the pitcher credit,” Sprague said. “He mixed pitches all day long, threw strikes, and was over 70% strikes. We had a tough time adjusting.
“I felt like we hit the ball hard a few times but right to people, and that is the game of baseball sometimes. We always preach hit the ball hard and you win, but in this case we didn’t hit enough of them hard and that’s why we lost the game.”
Perrysburg improves to 15-5 overall and 6-4 in the Northern Lakes League Buckeye Division while Napoleon falls to 11-7 overall and 6-5 in the NLL Cardinal Division.
Woods took the loss, striking out three, walking three, allowing one hit and the only run of the game while throwing 57 pitches, including 29 strikes to 15 batters over four innings.
Diemer closed the final two innings, striking out two, walking none, and allowing two hits and no runs, while throwing 23 pitches, including 17 strikes, to seven batters.
“I thought we pitched very well,” Sprague said. “We relied on guys that we haven’t relied on.
“Between the two guys tonight, we had two innings combined pitching between the two of them, and then they pitched one-run baseball against a great ball club like Perrysburg.
“We take that as a positive. I’m not about moral victories, but that’s a positive for us that we’re starting to develop that pitching depth,” Sprague continued.
None of the three pitchers allowed an extra base hit, and out of 48 plate appearances, they combined for just seven strikeouts as the game saw just one error.
Napoleon catcher Luke Hardy did throw out Perrysburg baserunner Brayden Heitmeyer trying to steal second base, ending a possible Yellow Jacket threat in the sixth inning.
Napoleon had its best chance to score in the top of the first after Devin Dietrich took the count full, reached on a walk, stole second and advanced to third when Lucas Gerken singled to right field.
But Woods hit into a 6-4-3 double play with Perrysburg second baseman Brayden Heitmeyer’s throw just beating Woods at first, or Dietrich would have scored the go-ahead run.
In the bottom of the fourth, Perrysburg made Napoleon pay with the lone run of the game.
Connor Kessinger took the count full, reached on walk, stole second, and scored when Perrysburg senior Matt Hubbard hit a single to right field for the game-winning RBI.
Gerken led Napoleon at the plate, going 2-for-3, and Owen Espinoza laid down a sacrifice bunt in the second that advanced Luke Hardy to second with one out, but Blaine Ford flew out to center field and Palmer struck out Eric Hershberger.
In the top of the seventh, Espinoza reached on the game’s only error with one out, but Palmer struck out the final two batters to end the game.
For Perrysburg, Heitmeyer, Hubbard, and Lucas Graham had base hits and Braxton Mefferd laid down a sacrifice bunt.
It was Senior Night for Perrysburg, and joining in the celebration was Muddy the Mud Hen. Perrysburg’s nine seniors are Hubbard, Quinn Weber, Abram Hire, Jack Losee, Carter Stanton, Dugan Smith, Parker Faris, Brady Zilles and Trent Bezek.
Palmer said he was extra motivated to win one for the seniors.
“My main goal is to get them the win,” Palmer said. “This is a special day for them, so I just felt like I’ve got to go out there and do my job and let them enjoy the moment of their Senior Night. It’s their day.”
Six seniors, Hubbard (University of Toledo), Faris (Adrian College), Weber (Adrian College), Bezek (Wittenberg University), Hire (Ohio Northern University), and Smith (Capital University) will play college baseball next year.
“They are just hard-working kids,” Hall said. “They took their knocks last year but they got better every game last year. They’ve been the cornerstone of the program. They bought in to what we did last year, what we are doing this year.
“Some have struggled a little this year, but they are great teammates, and tomorrow we are calling it Senior Weekend, so tomorrow (hosting Bryan at 10 a.m.) all nine seniors will start, because I told them a league game we’ve got to go with our best. Tomorrow, we’ll try to win, but we’re going to let them all play.”
While the Yellow Jackets are not mathematically eliminated from the NLL Buckeye Division title yet, they can’t afford to lose another league game.
“We’ve got four losses, 6-4, with four left, and I don’t know if we can catch Northview. They have to lose and we have to win out. We have Anthony Wayne twice, Clay, and Southview,” Hall said.
The Division I tournament draw is Sunday, and Hall expects NLL teams to be the favorites to win district championships.
“Clay is the one seed, Northview is the two seed, AW is three and we are four,” Hall said. “Our league, you know, day-in and day-out, it doesn’t matter.
“That team (Napoleon) is really good there. They only got beat twice by Clay by one run and then extra innings (4-3 and 3-0 in nine innings), and they played us well. You’ve got to come to battle every day. Nothing is easy.”
