Astro Falcons shut out DuraEdge

By BOB ETTINGER

sports@vindy.com

STRUTHERS

The Astro Falcons can drive a defense to distraction, even if they aren’t hitting.

Well-timed hits push a defense to a breaking point, as the Falcons managed to do in a 6-0 victory over DuraEdge on Tuesday night at Cene Park.

“We have speed,” Astro manager Don Pletcher said. “There’s speed, then there’s speed that makes you nervous. We have so much speed, it puts legitimate pressure on a defense. We tend to make teams think about it, then they tense up a little bit. There are nights we might not hit, but if we’re patient and can get guys on base, we can make things happen.”

Dom Pilolli was a perfect example of those thoughts for the Falcons. He walked in the first, stole second and scored from second on a single from Andrew Russell. His next time up, in the third, he drove a ball into the gap in right-center scoring Brayden Beck from first and following him across the plate for an inside-the-park home run for a 3-0 Astro lead.

In a three-run fifth, Vince Armeni singled and scored on Chase Franken’s bunt single and an error on the throw. Franken scored on a ground out by Russell and Pilolli walked, stole second, moved up on a ground ball and scored on a passed ball.

“We preach seeing the pitch and staying patient,” Pletcher said. “We have extremely good patience at the plate. We’re not afraid to get to two strikes. Pilolli went to right-center for the home run. We see the pitch, let it travel in and attack the pitch we want to hit, not the pitch they want us to hit.”

Nick Cosentino worked six innings and scattered four hits in the win.

“He threw 50 percent of his breaking pitches for strikes and 50 percent weren’t,” DuraEdge manager Terry Dobson said. “We were sitting there, letting fastballs go by for strikes. That’s baseball 101. We should be sitting on the fastball. We let too many fastballs go by without swinging, especially early in the count.”

DuraEdge left eight runners on base and had another caught stealing.

“We didn’t put the bat on the ball when we had runners on base,” Dobson said. “We stranded 10 runners. We didn’t put the bat on the ball when we needed to.”

Russell had two hits and two RBI and Pilolli drove in a pair and scored three times for the Falcons.

Tyler Robinson singled twice for DuraEdge.