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Rams blend helpful influx with holdover veterans

By Bob Madison - For the Chronicle | Feb 18, 2022

Crebs

HARTSVILLE, S.C. — Austin Crebs threw 80 pitches in silencing the Cobras. He was joined by other first-year Shepherd pitchers Ryan Bywaters and Chris Chaney as well as potential run-producers Ross Mulhall and Ryan Haddaway. All five of those additions to the Shepherd baseball roster helped the Rams in beating Coker twice in the teams’ three-game series last weekend. Coker, then 1-6 overall, defeated the Rams, 2-0, in a third game where Shepherd could not solve the strikes thrown at them by left-hander Chris Watkins (six innings, seven strikeouts, two hits and two walks).

Crebs opened Shepherd’s season with six sharp innings where he did not walk or hit a batter. He artfully spaced four hits and struck out six in a dominating early-season showing. After Crebs left, he had done enough to get the win in Shepherd’s 7-4 success over the struggling Cobras, he was replaced by Adam Miller, who went three innings and did not allow a walk and got credit for a save.

Holdover outfielder/designated hitter Daniel Keer clubbed consecutive home runs in his first two at-bats of the season.

Leading just 4-3 going to the ninth, the Rams got a solo homer from Joey Schwartz and a two-RBI single from Brennan Holmes to score three times and win, 7-4.

On Saturday, the teams played a doubleheader on another baseball-weather day where the temperature rose to 70-degrees.

Daugherty

Another strike-thrower — Nick Trabacchi — used 93 pitches in his seven innings of efficient work to tame Coker’s lineup. Trabacchi was touched for three runs, but once had a 9-1 lead as the Rams continually rallied with the walks they received, three more RBIs from Keer and Cole Daugherty’s solo homer.

Trabacchi struck out eight, allowed only four hits, walked only two and had 59 strikes in his 93 pitches. Left-handed Nate Hodgkinson pitched the last two innings without getting into any trouble. He fanned two and had no walks as Shepherd walked away with an 11-3 win to improve to 2-0.

Shepherd’s 10-hit offense was aided by the nine walks or hit batsmen they had.

In getting its first win of their seven-game season, the Cobras scored a run off Chaney in the fourth and handed the reins to Watkins, who was never really threatened by the Rams or their two hits.

Mulhall and Daugherty had Shepherd’s only hits in the seven-inning game.

Holmes

To make sure no Shepherd last-inning rally was going to spoil its first win of the 2022 season, Coker closer Tristan Fowler struck out the side in rapid-fire order in the seventh to finish off the combined two-hitter.

The Rams were 2-1 on their South Carolina trip, winning behind the crisp pitching of Crebs, Hodgkinson, Trabacchi and Miller and not the team batting average of .231 they brought back from temperature-friendly South Carolina.