By JOHN BOHNENKAMP
Wednesday was a day off from a five-game losing streak, but Burlington Bees manager Owen Oreskovich had his team at Community Field for a morning workout.
And in a conversation with the players on the field, Oreskovich told his team that there is still a lot of baseball remaining this summer in the Prospect League schedule for the Bees.
The response on Thursday was a 9-8 win over the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp.
A five-run fourth inning put the Bees into the lead, and then they held off a late Illinois Valley rally for the win.
“Yesterday was more of just keeping these guys tough in their heads,” Oreskovich said. “I can’t say if it did or didn’t make a true difference. But it helped their heads a little bit. We’re still out here trying to do this thing.”
“Basically, it was just, ‘Get that W,’” shortstop Kooper Schulte said. “We’ve been on a losing streak — I don’t know how long it was, but it was too long. So it was just, let’s get the ‘W.’ And hopefully we can keep it rolling from there.”
The Bees (4-8) had 12 hits, including eight from their 2-3-4-5 spots in the lineup. Mason Schwalbach had three hits and drove in three runs. Schulte and Coy Sarsfield each had two hits.
The inspiration of Oreskovich’s message came from this spring. Mount Mercy, the college where Oreskovich is an assistant coach, opened the season 2-6, then won 21 of its next 23 games.
“So it’s possible to turn things around,” Oreskovich said. “I felt like it was time to make sure everyone is bought in to trying to win baseball games. There’s a ton of baseball left.
“It’s baseball. You’ve seen that stuff happen many times.”
“No one likes losing,” Schulte said. “I freaking hate losing, myself. But it’s part of life. Stuff happens. You just have to push through that.”
Of course, the Bees came out and promptly gave up three runs in the top of the first inning. But they responded with three runs in the bottom of the inning — Schwalbach had an RBI triple, Ian Wolski followed with a run-scoring single and then later scored on a throwing error.
“I’ve said before — we try to score every inning,” Oreskovich said. “And when you’re down 3-0 coming in and you haven’t even hit yet, sometimes that’s a little tough on an offense. But these guys are strong-minded, and our offense knows we’ve got to do a little extra right now. They’re doing everything they can, battling every time up there.”
“It was big-time,” Schulte said of the response. “That pretty much gave us the momentum throughout the game. I thought we were scoring every inning the way it was going.”
Then came the fifth, when the Bees erupted trailing 4-3. Schwalbach’s sacrifice fly tied the game, then Sarsfield and Keanu Spenser had back-to-back two-run doubles.
Schwalbach’s single in the fifth inning scored Drew Gaskins with Burlington’s final run of the night.
Illinois Valley (5-8) scored three runs in the seventh, and threatened in the ninth inning with two runners on base with two outs, but Bees reliever Drew Martin closed out the game by getting Logan Delgado to ground out.
Dylan Haslett (1-1) was the winning pitcher. Martin got his first save. Sam Corbett (0-1) was the losing pitcher.
NOTES: Schwalbach extended his hitting streak to five games. He is hitting .357 this season, and is hitting ,474 during his current streak. … Schulte boosted his batting average to .448. … Sarsfield has hit in four of his first five games.
ON DECK: The Bees play the Cape Catfish (12-1) in Friday’s 6:30 p.m. game at Community Field. Jacob Zahner will pitch for the Bees.
Photo: Burlington Bees shortstop Kooper Schulte tries to tag out Illinois Valley’s Tobey Jackson on a stolen-base attempt in the third inning. (John Lovretta/bees-blog.com)
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