Springfield, Strath Haven split elongated twinbill

SPRINGFIELD >> The official boxscore completed Tuesday afternoon shows alarmingly gaudy figures in Will Carey’s pitching line.

But instead of calling the baseball police for the 11 innings and 174 pitches with which the Strath Haven senior is credited, Tuesday’s baseball extravaganza between Springfield and Haven serves as a fitting portrait of the parity and unpredictability of the Central League this season.

Carey gritted through every out of the rain-suspended continuation of an April 4 game that Haven won, 5-4, on Evan Atsaves’ walk-off sacrifice fly. Springfield got its revenge in the second game of the de facto double dip, Mike Smith delivering six just-what-the-doctor-ordered shutout innings in a 3-0 victory.

Even for an impromptu 14-inning marathon of a day, the teams managed to pack a few surprises in. Strath Haven (9-6, 9-5 Central) led 3-1 when the game resumed in the bottom of the fourth and 4-1 as the game headed to the sixth.

Springfield (11-4, 9-5) scratched out an unearned run in the sixth, but Carey still looked in control in the seventh, even after Tom Quinn singled to lead off the inning and remained rooted at first after consecutive fly outs.

But in stepped Andrew Todaro, who lengthened the afternoon with one swing of his bat, meeting Carey’s 2-1 delivery and powering it over the left-field fence for a game-tying home run.

“I saw that fastball inside and just put my regular swing on and he supplied the power on it,” Todaro said. “I honestly didn’t know it went out until I looked and saw coach (Brian) Francis over there jumping around.”

But Carey responded. He allowed just one base-runner in four extra frames, retiring the last 11 Cougars to come to the plate in working an unexpectedly long seven innings Tuesday.

“Once you give up something like that, you’ve got to kick into game mode and focus in and throw your game,” Carey said. “You’ve got to slow things down and throw things right.”

Though his Panthers weren’t making much headway against reliever Ben Thorpe, they eventually broke through in the 11th when Casey Rosier led off with a single, stole second and was moved over to third with one out.

Two intentional walks loaded the bases, then Atsaves lofted a medium-distance fly ball to Quinn in right, but the throw two-hopped wide of the plate, allowing Rosier to slide home.

It’s a game-winning sac fly from Atsaves. Final: Strath Haven 5, Springfield 4 in 11 pic.twitter.com/xu40jOq6YY

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) May 10, 2016

The emotion of the first game’s conclusion created a lull that Haven’s bats never escaped in the regularly-scheduled outing, though much of that can be credited to Smith’s arm.

While both teams came to terms with the unexpected arrangement, the lefty was dealing from the first pitch. He navigated around a bases-loaded situation fueled by two walks in the second inning, but otherwise he breezed through six, allowing just three hits — two to his opposite number, Andrew Robinson, in the nine-hole — and striking out three.

“They had the momentum from winning the first game, so my biggest goal was just to shut that momentum down any way possible,” Smith said. “And I thought I did a good job of that, and my fielders made the plays behind me.”

“Mike is the perfect pitcher to come back like that because he always has that fire under his belt,” Todaro said. “That just fires us up more. He’s a great pitcher, played with him a long, long time, and he’s probably one of the best pitchers I’ve ever played with and caught for.”

Robinson wasn’t bad either, working into the sixth. But the Cougars cobbled together a run in the first when Smith led off with a single and scored on Nick Gorman’s groundout to get the early.

“It’s a team effort to come back like that with such high, positive momentum,” Todaro said. “And getting the first run like that was a big part of it, because it gave us the confidence that, ‘Hey, we’re in this game, we can win.’”

The Cougars produced two more runs in the sixth, capped fittingly enough by a Todaro RBI single, and Jared Morris navigated a lead-off walk in the seventh with a pair of punchouts to record the save.

In a Central League that has offered plenty of surprises this season, Tuesday’s presented a new one for both teams. That it didn’t offer resolution to the standings that featured half the league within two games of the lead isn’t a surprise.

But embarking on the rest of a crowded week with that simultaneous feeling of victory and defeat is a little nuance to enliven the stretch run.

“You’ve got to be happy that you won one, but then the grief kind of hits you that you lost the second one,” Carey said. “We’ve got to focus in now and play hard the rest of the week out.”

“It’s a great feeling,” Smith said. “We were able to split the difference one and one today. … It was definitely good to end this day on a good note, and we’re going to try to keep the momentum moving forward.”

Also in the Central League:

Radnor 6, Marple Newtown 1 >> Andrew Austen worked into the seventh inning to move to 4-0 on the year, while Matt Schaefer supplied two hits and two RBIs for Radnor (8-8, 8-5).

Connor Wilson and Sean Mullarkey added two hits apiece for the Raiders.

Cameron Mathes doubled for Marple (11-6, 10-4), which dropped out of a first-place tie.