Second baseman Caden Shoemaker stepped to the plate with two outs in a scoreless ball game with a runner on third and delivered a walk-off single to right field to plate Braxon Gough and send the Joplin Miners to a 1-0 win over the Pittsburg (Kansas) Coal Diggers on Saturday at Joe Becker Stadium.
“I had an opportunity with a guy on third,” Shoemaker said. “I just hit the ball where it was pitched and took it back side. I had to get a job done and did it. … This was a huge win. I don’t think our record shows the success we can have as a team. I think this is a good start for the rest of the season.”
“Great job by Caden,” Joplin coach Kyle Wolf said. “I have told a lot of people that if his body was as big as his heart, he’d be unbelievable because he has tremendous heart. He just works, competes and grinds it out. I am very happy for him to be able to come through at the plate for us there and get us a win.”
Capping off the city of Joplin’s sesquicentennial (150 years) celebration on the diamond—which started with an all-Kansas matchup of the Galena Miners taking on the Columbus Bombers before the Westerns Base Ball Club of Topeka squared off against the St. Louis Brown Stockings in a vintage game—the Joplin Eagles dawned uniforms inspired by the Joplin Miners, while the Pittsburg Dragon wore uniforms representing the Pittsburg Coal Miners—both minor league teams from the early 1900’s—for a throwback style game. Of course, playing this game at a stadium filled with rich baseball history made it all the more special.
“You can’t ask for a better day, but it could have been a little warmer for our game,” Wolf said with a laugh. “We had a team meal today—and thanks to some of our families for putting that together for us—and we got to spend some time together before we got out to the park. … It was really neat to see the history of the game at Joe Becker Stadium. Then to go get a walk-off win at the end of it was special.
“I told the kids before the game they had a good opportunity to go represent your school and your community in a big celebration. I told them to go out and enjoy it and have a good time. I think we did.”
Joplin made it a habit of putting pressure on Pittsburg with two outs all game long before finally breaking through in the last of the seventh. The Miners had a two-out single, walk and hit-by-pitch in the first inning, a two-double in the third and two-out walk in the fourth and a pair of singles with two outs in the fifth frame.
In the seventh, Gough reached base on a fielding error by Pittsburg with one out before advancing to second on the same play after a throwing error to first went into the visiting dugout. Two batters later, Shoemaker delivered the biggest two-out knock of the game.
“I thought we extended some innings,” Wolf said. “It would have been easy just to go down 1-2-3, but we extended things and put pressure on them early with two outs. We just couldn’t come up with that two-out hit (with runners in scoring position) earlier in the game. Anytime you are competing, getting people on and extending innings, you just feel like the momentum is building throughout the course of the game.”
Byler Reither was dominant on the hill for the Miners, earning the no-decision after pitching 6 2/3 scoreless innings of baseball before being lifted on pitch count. He scattered three hits, walked two and struck out nine.
“He was ultra competitive on the mound,” Wolf said. “Early in the game, I kept telling him, “Hey, let’s be more efficient. We were getting in too many 3-2 counts.’ But, the key was, he was getting outs in those 3-2 counts.
“I also thought we were really good defensively today. Landon Maples made some tremendous plays at shortstop and bailed us out of some situations. That was a combined effort. Byler was competing on the mound and getting big outs when he needed them and when we got the ground ball, we were able to make that play to collect outs that way. That is a team that has scored some runs this year, so it was a great effort to shut them out.”
Kutler Schwarting earned the win in relief, striking out the only batter he faced in the top of the seventh.
Garrett Hanson took the loss for the Coal Diggers after allowing one unearned run on five hits, two walks and eight strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings.
As good as he was on the mound, Reither has been better at the plate as of late. He has six hits in his last six at-bats, including a 3-for-3 game with a double and three runs scored earlier in the week against Nixa before staying hot with a 3-for-3 game, including a double, against Pittsburg.
“Byler has bought into changing his approach just a little bit,” Wolf said. “He’s not trying to do too much and seeing the baseball, jumping on fastballs, barreling the baseball and spraying it to all fields. I think his first hit was a single through the right side before he doubled down the third-base line (in his second at-bat). That is the sign of a good hitter who is taking what he is given and doing what he can with it.”
The other two hits in the Miners’ lineup belonged to Shoemaker, who went 2-for-4 with the game-winning hit and RBI.
Jacob Linahan, Hanson and Grant O’Doherty all had hits for the Coal Diggers.
The Joplin Eagles (5-10) return to action on Tuesday with a road Central Ozark Conference clash with Republic (8-8).
