Rattlers Lose To Giants 5-3

From the Capital-Journal:

The Topeka Golden Giants entered their final regular season series riding a five-game losing streak, looking to turn things around and improve their postseason playoff prospects.

Solid pitching and one big inning was enough to give the Golden Giants a 5-3 victory over the Rossville Rattlers in a Mid-Plains League game Thursday at Bettis Family Sports Complex.

In snapping the five-game skid, the Giants improved to 13-18 to stand third in the MPL West Division with a 1½-game lead over the fourth-place Rattlers (12-20) with the league tournament starting next week.

“Every game at this point is really important,” Giants coach Chris Graves said. “At this point in the league, everybody has beaten everybody so I don’t know if it really matters where you end up because anybody can beat anybody this year.

“We’ve been struggling a little bit with a little bit of everything, including having guys showing up, so it was good to have everybody here and get a good team win.”

Rossville scored two unearned runs in the fourth inning to take a 2-1 lead but Topeka put together a three-run fifth with four hits, including an RBI double by Connor Rule and run-scoring singles from Butch Rea and Peyton Grassanovits.

“I thought we hit the ball real well most of the game but we didn’t find many holes,” Graves said. “We finally we found a few holes and strung some stuff together, and it happened to be enough.”

The Giants had eight hits with center fielder Will Brennan going 2-for-2 with two walks, three runs scored and three stolen bases.

Topeka starting pitcher Ethan Frazier allowed two runs on four hits in four innings. Paul Wolfram, the second of four Giant pitchers, worked one inning and earned the win with Justin Watkins going the final two innings for the save.

“Our plan going in is to have everyone ready for the tournament so the rest of the games we play will be by committee,” Graves said of the pitching staff. “We won’t have anybody go probably more than three or four innings.”

Rattlers designated hitter Garrett Weber went 2-for-4 with two RBIs while Cameron Thomas and Nate Reeder had two hits apiece.

The three-game series continues Friday at 6:15 p.m. at Bettis.

Rossville 000 201 000 — 3 9 2

Topeka 010 031 00x — 5 8 1

Scrimsher, Kutzke (6), Michalski (8) and Whitworth. Frazier, Wolfram (5), Correl (6), Watkins (8) and Kirmer. W – Wolfram. L – Scrimsher. Sv – Watkins. 2B – Topeka: Rule. 3B – Rossville – Reeder.