The Redlegs narrowly defeated the Mad River Machine by a final score of 5-4 on Sunday, improving to 5-3 with one third of the season in the books.  The Redlegs seemed to be in control for most of the game, never trailing in the contest.  But the Machine kept it too close for comfort especially in the late going. 

Camden got on the board first, scoring once in the 2nd and once in the 3rd to take an early 2-0 lead. Brandon Howard worked a lead-off walk in the 2nd and scored on a sacrifice fly by Joey Watson.  Jacob Robinson then delivered a two-out single in the 3rd and later scored on a base hit from Kyle Arend. 

Still in search of his first victory of 2021, Aaron Carmack was on-point early in the game allowing no base runners in the 1st or 2nd.  But leading 2-0 in the bottom of the 3rd it looked like the Machine might break through after a lead off single followed by a walk.  The next batter hit a sharp grounder to 2nd, but Jesse Jones made a picturesque diving play ranging to his left and delivered a perfect strike to 1st base from his knees to record the first out.  With runners now at 2nd and 3rd, Carmack ended the threat with a punch-out and ground out. 

The Redlegs did most of their damage in the top of the 5th.  Evan Koogler laced a one-out double down the left field line, followed by a walk to Jacob Robinson and a single by Brad Malott to load the bases.  After a fly out, Mike Hartman came up clutch with a 2-run single, followed by an RBI single from Brandon Howard. 

That would be the entirety of the offensive output for Camden, and luckily Carmack continued to cruise along.  The Machine finally broke through and scored a run in the bottom of the 7th to blemish Carmack’s shutout.  Joey Watson helped keep a 2nd run from scoring as the Machine had a runner on 3rd with nobody out.  After a Carmack offering, Watson quickly fired to third as the runner had an aggressive lead.  The runner opted to try to score, but Mike Hartman delivered a perfect strike back to Watson to complete the 2-5-2 putout and erase the runner in scoring position.

 Carmack’s solid outing did earn him his first win of the season, as he finished with 7 strikeouts while allowing just 3 hits and the lone run.  He surpassed 300 career regular season innings pitched in his outing as well, passing teammates Jacob Robinson and Evan Koogler on the all-time leaderboard and now stands just behind Andrew Madlinger at 14th most in league history.  Interestingly enough, Andrew Madlinger toed the rubber against Carmack in this contest for the Machine. 

The Machine then scraped together 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th to tighten the contest to a one run ballgame.  After a scoreless top of the 9th for the Redlegs, the Machine came to bat looking to force extra innings or the walk-off victory.  Zack Seagraves looked like he might start the rally to do just that by lining a lead-off shot into left center field, but Jacob Robinson was able to make a diving snare to record the first out.  The next batter reached on an error, followed by a flyout and a single.  With runners on 1st and 2nd and two-out, Jesse Jones delivered the game ending strike out in a pressure packed spot.  Jesse racked up 4 strikeouts in his 2 innings of relief work. 

Next up for Camden is the Wright Knights (2-5) in a double dip at Madison High School on Sunday, June 6th beginning at 1:00pm. 

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