BASEBALL: West Laurens wins grinding game with Baldwin

You have to walk before you can run. And that was true in a literal sense for 16 different West Laurens hitters that Baldwin put on base in a Tuesday-night walk-a-thon to open the teams’ region series. 

The Raiders capitalized as best they could on the host of free passes, adding four of their own hits in a slow-moving ballgame that turned into an 8-1 victory to stay perfect in 2-AAAA action. 

West Laurens visits the Braves in Milledgeville to conclude the series Friday afternoon, after a trip a bit further up the road to take on Morgan County in non-region ball Wednesday night. 

Baldwin’s Rickey Jenks and Noah Suddeth, despite some competitive pitches that allowed them each to strike out four, issued eight bases on balls apiece that kept the bases full of Raiders for most of the afternoon. 

The home team had some varying success getting those men in to score, stranding a total of 12 men on base by game’s end. West Laurens chased home a quick three one just one hit in the first inning before leaving the bases full in the second. 

A couple of base hits with two outs set the table for runs on a Jenks walk with the bases loaded, and a Suddeth wild pitch, on either side of Baldwin’s only pitching change in the third. 

The Raiders were held scoreless in innings 4 and 5, but added on a final three in the bottom of the sixth, which included an error, four walks and an RBI single for a second of two hits by Reid McFadden. 

The Braves – save for at the plate against Parker Bryant and two other pitchers, who held them to two hits – were at no point overwhelmed, though West Laurens closed the book on their threats to score in every inning except the fifth, when they were just a touch late on their throw down to second in an effort to catch a stealing runner for a potential third out. 

The play was just beaten out by Baldwin’s Ayden Whidby to allow Jacobe Jackson, at third, to take off for the plate and make it 5-1. 

Bryant, however, was mostly impossible for the Braves to touch. 

The junior gave up only one hit, to Whidby in the Baldwin third inning, but worked around that and three walks with a dozen strikeouts that kept him in command. 

Ethan Waldrep followed Bryant with an inning of relief in the sixth, which also began with a walk. Baldwin parlayed the runner into an opportunity on the comebacker of Ty Williams that sprung over the Raider mound and landed behind it for an infield hit. 

But Kaden Baggett ended the Braves’ scoring threat on a leaning snag of Caden Thigpen’s line drive to first, stepping back to the bag for an unassisted double play. 

McFadden, on for the last inning of relief, walked his first batter, but picked him off in a bounce back before punching out two straight to end the game. 

Bryant, leading off the three-run first with a double, and Grant Baker, with a single to represent a first of two runs in the third, added hits for West Laurens. 

Jakob Sahli and Cason Pollock also had RBIs.