The Florence Y’alls had no trouble running up the scoreboard in a rout against the Empire State Greys on Tuesday.
Florence claimed the victory 21-4 and improve to 25-35 on the season.
The struggling Greys have managed just three wins in sixty-one games. The team was formed in the offseason to keep the Frontier League at sixteen teams following the folding of the Southern Illinois Miners.
Empire League was pieced together with players from the Empire Professional Baseball League, a four-team federation that plays in upstate New York.
On Tuesday, the Y’alls tied their season high with 21 hits, and set a new season high with 21 runs.
“Obviously, you can’t take a team like this lightly because they like to sneak up and win a game here and there,” said Brian White, Florence manager. “We wanted to come out and play the brand of baseball that we’ve played the last few days, make sure we do the little things right, make sure we were hustling everywhere, not take any pitches off and bury this team like we should. Our guys came out and did that.”
First baseman Brennan Price smacked a three-run home run off Empire State starting pitcher Alberto Rodriguez (0-2) in the bottom of the first inning to start the rout. Second baseman Ethan Stern doubled in two runners before scoring on a wild pitch in the bottom of the third. Then left fielder Ray Zuberer hit a two-run blast to put Florence up 9-1.
Zuberer finished 3 for 4 with two home runs, one double, five runs batted in, three runs scored and drew two walks. Designated Hitter Craig Massey went 4 for 4 with one double and scored three runs. Stern went 4 for 5 with two doubles, four RBI and four runs scored.
“I would say we just came out really focused,” Zuberer said. “At the end of the day, it’s still a baseball game so we got to come out and play like we know how to play. It started in the cages in (batting practice). Everyone was locked in and ready to go. We just played really well.”
Center fielder Rodney Tennie also went 4 for 5 for the Y’alls driving in one and scoring twice and shortstop Alberti Chavez went 3 for 5 with a double and two runs scored. Infielder Bryant Flete homered driving in five and scoring twice. Right fielder Anthony Brocato added four runs and extended his hitting streak to 12 straight games.
Pitcher Tyler Flueck (1-0) started for Florence throwing six innings. He struck out one and walked one. Kent Kylman, Evy Ruibal and Darwin Ramos each threw one scoreless inning.
“Overall, it was good. But it could have been better,” White said. “It is hard for a pitcher to come into the dugout, sit there that long then go back out. But we do want to make sure we get those shutdown innings. We were pretty successful with those. But we do need to do a better job of that moving forward.”
Florence has won three straight scoring 45 runs during the winning streak, and have won eight of the last 12 games. The Y’alls have scored double-digit runs 13 times this year including four this month.
Florence continues the series Wednesday back at Thomas More Stadium. Game time is 6:31 p.m.
