TIMMINS - The Whiskey Jacks recorded their second walk-off win in as many nights, defeating the Champoux Homes-Wacky Wings Orioles 9-8 to take a 2-0 lead in the Timmins Men's Baseball League best-of-five final series on Thursday.
Cid Bradette went 2-for-3 with three RBIs for the 13-time defending champion Whiskey Jacks, while Chris Greer finished 2-for-4 with four runs scored and a pair of RBIs.
The bottom half of the lineup also came up big for the Jacks, especially late in the game. The Orioles held a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the sixth when Bradette knocked in Greer with a double to reduce the advantage to one run, bringing up the Jacks' lesser-known hitters.
But Matt Béchard kept the momentum going with a single and Owen Rigg was hit by a pitch by Orioles starter Trevor Niemi, loading the bases for No. 8 hitter Josh Vandal.
Though he was 0-for-2 up to that point with a walk, Vandal said he had a plan in mind going up to bat before poking a ground-ball single past the second-baseman to drive in the game-tying run at the time.
“They were playing in, so I made sure to get the bat on the ball, I got ahead of it a bit, and I guess it squeaked through,” he said.
Vandal was also at the plate in the bottom of the seventh when he watched Greer slide into home to score the game-winning run after a pitch by Orioles reliever Eric Paquette bounced past catcher Mario Fillion.
“We'll take it,” said Vandal after the game. “Hey, I crowded the plate a little bit, that was the gameplan, and it worked out in our favour.
“This was huge. We won the first game in (similar) fashion, in extra innings, and it took all the bottom of the lineup to do this. We did it in the first game, and we did it again in the second game. It hasn't been all year that we've been great, but the bottom half came through in the past two games and that's why we have a 2-0 lead. Hopefully we can go into the third game and win it.”
After going the length of Wednesday's extra-inning, 4-3 Game 1 win on the mound for the Jacks, Greer once again got the call in the fifth inning on Thursday to relieve his team's starter, Jamie Dallaire.
Greer went the final three innings to pick up his third win in the 2015 playoffs, allowing just one unearned run on one hit and one walk. He also struck out a pair of Orioles.
“Dallaire started the game and he pitched well,” said Vandal. “But we saw we were down by a couple of runs and we needed to hold them off a bit, and (Greer) is our best pitcher so that's the guy we put in when we need something big like that.”
Back in the first inning, the Orioles took advantage of a pair of Whiskey Jacks errors and two pass balls to jump out to a 3-0 lead against Dallaire.
