Pitts stops RedWolves

FLORENCE — Bobby Doran was good for the Florence RedWolves on Wednesday night.

Forest City’s Chris Pitts was just as good —better, actually, for the first five innings — and he’s the one who got a little bit of offensive help in the Owls’ 3-0 win at American Legion Stadium.

Florence (18-5) didn’t get a baserunner against Pitts (3-1) until the fifth inning, and didn’t record a base hit off the right-hander from Easley until Keegan Morrow’s bunt single to start the sixth.

Pitts has bounced back for the Owls (15-8) since a rough first outing of the year in which he gave up four earned runs in 2 2/3 innings, which is largely responsible for the 6.16 ERA he sported heading into Wednesday’s game.

Since then, he has shown flashes of solid pitching, but none like the game he put together against Florence, which got one runner as far as third base in the seventh, and one each to second in the eighth and ninth innings.

“I’ve just been doing a lot of mechanics work and let everything else happen,” said Pitts, who allowed two hits and two walks in seven innings. “It was just one of those nights where everything was clicking.”

Most everything was clicking, as well, for Doran (2-3). The Owls roughed him up a little in the first, when a pair of singles to start the game turned into two runs. Lead-off batter Wade Moore singled, went to third on Jordan Petraitis’ base hit to right and scored on a wild pitch. Petraitis made it 2-0 when he scored on Kevin Mailloux’s RBI ground out to short.

Forest City’s other run came when Bryan Fogle led off the fifth with a long home run to left-center.

The RedWolves, though, couldn’t string anything together offensively. Pitts didn’t make anyone look bad — Florence hitters made solid contact several times and Pitts didn’t strike out anyone - but hardly any ball Florence hit found anything except a Forest City glove.

Doran went the distance, scattering seven hits, striking out three and walking one.

“Bobby’s been our tough-luck guy,” Florence coach Wes Davis said. “He’s got two or three losses now where he’s gone out and pitched really well. He’s had nights where we’ve had three or four errors behind him. Tonight we swung the bats well and didn’t have anything to show for it.

“That’s the way baseball is. It’s going to even you out. Some days you get some breaks, some days you don’t.”

Not that the RedWolves have much to complain about.

Florence still hasn’t lost consecutive games all season and easily won the first half in the Coastal Plain League’s South division.

The RedWolves’ job now, Davis said, is to make sure they just keep playing solid baseball.

“Baseball has always been a game where it’s about who’s playing good baseball going into the playoffs,” he said. “We’re never going to take a day off. We’re not going to draw names out of a hat or do anything crazy. Guys are going keep playing, pitchers are going to keep pitching and we’re going do everything we can to win every single game. The approach doesn’t change between the first game and all the way to the end.”