Solo blast in extra innings gives West the win

by Cory Butzin

The Midwest League’s Western Division All-Star team battled nerves, inclement weather, and a slew of opposing pitchers before pulling ahead in extra innings, thanks to a solo home run by All-Star Most Valuable Player Tim Smith of the Clinton LumberKings, to come away with a 5-4 win Tuesday at Dow Diamond.

“It’s not usually my style,” Smith said. “But it couldn’t be at a better time and there couldn’t be a better place to do it.”

Smith is not known for his power, having hit only three home runs in the last two years, but he picked a perfect time for his fourth round tripper. In the top of the tenth, Smith came to bat against Loons’ closer Miguel Ramirez and launched a rocket deep to right field that just squeezed inside the foul pole, winning the game and the MVP in the process.

“It felt good,” he said. “It’s an honor just to be here. It’s an honor to be able to represent not only the LumberKings and Rangers, but it’s a great privilege to play with all these elite players that you’re going to see in the big leagues in a few years.”

Afterwards, Smith joked that he should have taken some of his teammates place in the home run derby Monday night.

The evening began on a high note for the West, as well, as they were able to have two runs cross the plate in the opening stanza against Eastern starter and Loons’ ace Steven Johnson.

It’s one of those things where you want to go out and do well, and I ended up walking two guys,” Johnson said. “It was fun, but obviously I wish I
would have done a little better.”

After sitting the first two runners down, Johnson developed control problems that saw him walk two batters and allow a single, with Kane County’s Corey Brown coming to the plate. Brown laced a single to right field to give the West an early 2-0 lead.

They wouldn’t keep it for long though.

The third inning would be the most productive offensive inning of the night for the East, when they roughed up Beloit’s David Bromberg. After Bromberg walked the first two batters to start the inning, Quad Cities shortstop Pete Kozma singled to load the bases. Loons’ outfielder Andrew Lambo, who entered the break tied for second in the league in RBIs, made up for his poor showing in the home run derby by drilling a pitch to left field to bring a run across. Whitecaps’ first baseman Chris Carlson then brought a runner home on a sacrifice grounder, before Charlie Kingrey of Quad Cities singled home Kozma to give the East a 3-2 lead.

The West responded with a run in the fourth and fifth innings to pull ahead 4-3, before the East tied with a rather unconventional run.

While battling Mother Nature’s anger, which came in the form of a thirty minute rain delay, Kingrey came up to bat in the bottom of the fifth. He drilled a pitch to left-center field, and raced around the bases to beat out the throw for a triple and then scored on a wild pitch to tie it 4-4.

From there, pitchers took control until Smith’s blast off Ramirez.

Peoria right-hander Blake Parker came into the game with one out in the bottom of the ninth and struck out four of the five batters he faced to record the win, while Ramirez took the loss.

Photos by Dave Williams