There was a different home team at Clemens Field Sunday afternoon. And this team has a two-game winning streak they want to defend.
After dropping the first game of their three-game, two city series 9-2 to the Dubois County Bombers, the Hannibal Cavemen (6-14) put together their second win in as many games with a 5-2 victory.
Cavemen manager Jay Hemond said the wins are the result of his team meeting a goal he set for it in Indiana on Thursday.
“I went in after Thursday’s game and challenged them to play mistake-free baseball,” Hemond said.
Asking for a game without errors was a bit of a tall order for Hannibal, after the team tied a season high of five on Thursday night. But the Cavemen have done just that in the last two days, keeping a goose egg in the column twice in a row.
But errorless baseball does not guarantee a win. Neither does a flurry of hits, but it can’t hurt. Hannibal turned into a hit factory in the seventh inning of Sunday afternoon’s contest when they churned out a game-high three hits for three runs to break a 2-2 tie from the inning before.
Possibly the most dramatic of those hits was a towering shot by the Cavemen’s Kyle Gaedele that bounced off the very top of the Black Beast in left field for an RBI double, driving home the final run of the game.
The Hannibal center fielder said that while he realized that a hit like that would have been a home run in almost any other park, he was just glad he was able to tear into the pitch.
“I haven’t hit [a home run] all year and I have been waiting for one,” Gaedele said. “I just wish the wind would have given me some love right there.”
Another Caveman with a hot bat on Sunday was shortstop Ashley Graeter, who was 2-for-4 with the two other RBIs in the seventh inning. Graeter, who pitched a four-hit gem Friday night, said that he was still riding the high, which was only added to by the fact that his family was able to see Sunday afternoon’s performance.
He said, though, that high is not limited to only him anymore.
“In the beginning of the season, we didn’t have much confidence from me to another person,” Graeter said. “It was always confidence in just themselves. But now, we are coming together as a team, getting the timely hits that we need. It really helps when you’ve got confidence, as a whole, in the team.”
From the mound, it was Cavemen ace Shane Riedie (4-1) who picked up the mound, going a full seven innings. And even though the hurler started out rough, giving up Dubois’ only two runs of the game in the first inning, he quickly settled in and produced four innings where he faced four batters or less in his outing.
“Shane didn’t get his regular warm-up, and he told me that he used that first inning as his time to loosen things up,” Hemond said. “But when he is on the mound, regardless, we as a team definitely have more confidence.”
Relief pitching from the Cavemen was just as sweet Sunday afternoon from Karl Whitley. The Wonder Boy from Arkansas Tech shaved almost a full point off of his ERA, down to .409, with a pair of scoreless innings. Whitley capped off his performance by striking out the last four batters he faced.
Sunday’s win marks the first time that the Hannibal Cavemen have ever had a multi-win streak, which Gaedele said raises the team’s spirits even more.
“We are all fired up,” Gaedele said. “This could be a turning point for our season. … We’ve just got to play a solid ball game.”
The Cavemen will go for win No. 3 Monday night at home when they take on the Danville Dans, a team the Cavemen beat 9-6 last weekend. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.
