CHILLICOTHE – The Chillicothe Paints used the long ball and excellent pitching to secure a, 2-1, win over the Johnstown Mill Rats on Friday night at VA Memorial Stadium.
“It’s one of those things, we’re not playing our best baseball, but we’re finding ways to win,” Paints field manager Jackson White said. “So that’s what I’m really happy about, You’ve got to find ways to win games like that.”
Gunnar Boehm got the win, on the hill, for Chillicothe. Boehm threw seven innings of one run, three hit baseball, giving up one walk ad recording four punch outs.
“I was able to spin a couple pitches pretty good,” Boehm said. “I think we have the best defense in the league, hands down, so I knew all I had to do was let the,m put the ball in play and let the defense work a little bit.”
Former Teays Valley pitcher, Brett Carson, shut down the Mill Rats batting order. Carson pitched two innings of one hit baseball, he waked two and struck out five to notch the save.
Mark Edeburn was tagged with the loss for the Mill Rats. Edeburn went four innings giving up two runs on six hits, walking one and striking out four.
It didn’t take any time for the Paints to get on the scoreboard. The first batter of the game for Chillicothe, Santrell Farmer drilled a pitch over the left-center field wall to give the Paints and early, 1-0, lead. In the second inning, Hunter Klotz extended the lead with homerun to right center field to put Chillicothe up, 2-0.
The next four innings saw Bohem retire 12 out the 13 batters he faced. “Boehm threw his butt off,” White said. “I’m really happy with him (Boehm), great job by our pitchers tonight, very good job. The pitchers picked up the batters tonight.”
Boehm also got some help from his defense. The Chillicothe infield turned a pair of double plays and for the third out in the top of the sixth inning, Farmer, from his position in right field, tracked foul ball into the bullpen, negotiated the pitcher’s mound and made a difficult play to end the inning.
“Santrell (Farmer) he’s just a heck of player he puts his body on the line, as you can see like he did on that play,” Boehm said of his right-fielder.
The Mill Rats did scrape a run across in the seventh inning. Jake Casey led off the inning with a triple to right center field, the next batter, Lukas Torres hit a sacrifice fly ball to center to score Casey.
But The Chillicothe pitchers would not allow another run securing the win for the Paints.
The win takes Chillicothe to 19-10 on the year and extends its lead in the Ohio River Valley Division.