All that Armada manager Steve Yeager asked for was a little consistency on the mound. Ryan Claypool was happy to oblige.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old righty put in six-plus solid innings in the Armada’s 7-4 victory over the Edmonton Cracker Cats last night at Blair Field, the team’s fourth win in the last five games which drew the team to an even 19-19 record. Claypool did his part, bringing a shutout into the 6th and finishing with six strikeouts and just two walks.<\/p>\n
“The fastball was working for me tonight,” he said after the game. “I was just getting ahead of them early. The team’s been playing well and I just tried to keep it going.”<\/p>\n
The rest of the squad brought plenty to the plate to take advantage of Claypool’s strong outing, bringing home the game’s first two batters to take an early lead that would not be relinquished. When Edmonton caught up in the 6th to tie the game at 3-3, Long Beach centerfielder Steve Moss slammed the door shut with a two-run homer to left that sliced through the thick marine layer and landed somewhere in the Big Rec driving range.<\/p>\n
Armada first-baseman Bret Flowers went 4-5, scoring one run and providing an RBI double for security in the 8th, and side-armed Justin Segal came on for the save to bring the Armada to an even record. Coach Yeager was pleased with the all-around effort.<\/p>\n
“Everybody’s done what I’ve asked them to do,” he said. “I think we’re a lot better than 19-19, and in the second half of the season we’ll do well. I hope [laughs]. You know, they’re a really good group of kids. They keep an old man young.”<\/p>\n
Smiling, Yeager turned to his locker before stopping.<\/p>\n
“Baseball’s a funny game,” he mused. “You can do terrible one day and great the next. It depends on what you run into. That’s the beauty of the game. And if you can’t wake up in the morning, put on a uniform and be excited to go to work, there’s something wrong with your head.”<\/p>\n
The Armada look to better their .500 mark against the Cracker Cats again tonight at 7:00, and will finish the four-game series Thursday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5737"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5737"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}