Bryant Durbin pitches two-hit shutout, Baker beats Mary Montgomery 4-0 to edge closer to area title

 

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

SEMMES — Baker ace Bryant Durbin grounded Mary G. Montgomery with a masterful two-hit shutout Thursday evening as the No. 5 Hornets took the lead in the 7A Area 1 race with a 4-0 win over the Vikings at Leon Druckenmiller Field.

MGM got just four balls out of the infield against the unbeaten Durbin and moved only three runners to second base in its first shutout this season.

“They executed when they had to,” Vikings coach Barry Hightower said. “The team that gets more runners to second base usually does well. We didn’t do that and they did.”

Durbin (8-0), a senior right-hander, made the game reminiscent of a 1½-hour fungo practice, forcing 12 ground-ball outs — including a double play in the fourth inning — walking three and striking out two in just his second complete game this season. He also had two hits and an RBI.

“I don’t get a lot of strikeouts,” said Durbin, who threw 93 pitches, 55 for strikes. “It seems in all eight games I’ve got a lot of ground balls.”

Baker (23-3, 3-0) — which has won 10 straight games and 17 of its last 18 — can virtually put a padlock on the area championship with a win over MGM (19-8, 2-1) on Friday. The teams play a doubleheader at 4:30 p.m. at Larry Andrews Field.

“We started out 1-2 but this is a senior-led team and they stepped up like seniors should,” Hornets coach Tyler Minto said. “We’ve been consistent, not too high or too low.”

Baker has won 16 games by at least seven runs but Durbin, who isn’t used to pitching complete games, gave Mary Montgomery some hope in the bottom of the seventh when he walked two batters with two outs.

But Minto visited the mound and had some simple advice.

“He told me to fill it up and throw it in the strike zone,” Durbin said.

The last out came when he induced his pitching counterpart, Cody Strickhausen, to ground into a force play at second.

Durbin spotted his 88-mph fastball well and began mixing in his curveball and changeup after some early trouble in which MGM stranded a runner on third and second in the first two innings. He was pushed to a full count only twice on his two walks in the seventh and made four pitches or less to 17 of the 25 batters he faced.

“I’m a big fastball guy,” Durbin said. “Early on, my change and my curve weren’t landing well, so I pounded the fastball. Then from about the second inning on I started landing my curve and change and locking in. I got a little tired at the end and went back to my fastball.”

After the Hornets committed a pair of errors in the first two innings, Durbin retired 11 of the next 13 batters.

“We made two errors early but I’m proud of the job our guys did in not compounding it,” Minto said. “They didn’t drop their heads and kept the momentum going.”

Baker led 1-0 in the top of the first on Durbin’s two-out RBI infield single that appeared to be a fielding miscommunication between Strickhausen and first baseman Kaden Harrell near the bag. Damon Fountain, who had been hit by a pitch, scored from second.

The Hornets played small ball for a 2-0 lead in the fifth. No. 9 hitter Peyton Buck led off with a single, moved over on Ethan Santos’ sacrifice bunt and Fountain’s single and scored on Camden Payne’s sacrifice bunt to first.

“Mary Montgomery’s got a great team and we knew it would be a move and manufacture-type game,” Minto said.

Baker added two more runs in the seventh on back-to-back RBI doubles by Payne and Auburn signee Connor Gatwood, who mashed a grounder that skipped past third baseman Everett Coggin.

Strickhausen (6-1) kept the Vikings close, allowing eight hits and two earned runs and throwing 59 of 94 pitches for strikes.

“Cody pitched well enough to win,” Hightower said. “It could have gone either way. We knew it would be a hard-fought series. We’re going to go compete and battle tomorrow.”