GRANBY – Michael Toth was Granby’s secret weapon on Saturday morning.
He started the game off with a bang, and closed it out in the top of the seventh inning.
Toth unleashed a home run in the first inning with two runners on to get Granby’s offense started, and he caught a foul pop-up for the third and final out in the seventh. Toth’s catch cemented a 9-0 win over visiting South Hadley in a Suburban League Central contest.
The win improved Granby’s record to 6-1 on the season, and 4-1 in league play.
“I just want to attack and get them a little shaky at first. (When he threw) the first curve ball, I knew another one was going to come. So I just wanted to sit on it and just try to hit as far as I can,” Toth said on his home run.
Toth’s longball highlighted a four-run first inning, giving the Rams a 4-0 lead after Collin Kennedy added another run following Toth’s hit. From there, Granby chipped away at South Hadley to increase its lead. The rest of the game felt closer than it was, but the damage was done after the opening inning.
“I thought in that first inning, we tried to do things that we don’t do. We tried a couple of pick-off plays that we don’t normally do, we threw a ball away,” South Hadley coach Matt Foley said. “They know each other, so they just wanted to win, and sometimes when you try to do too much in baseball, there’s negative consequences.”
It didn’t help the Tigers that Ryan Gaughan was pitching for Granby. Gaughan threw all seven innings for the Rams, finishing with seven strikeouts to pick up the victory.
“If you can get out (to a lead) early any time in baseball, it makes things easier, and that’s what we did,” Granby head coach Jim Woods said. “We got out early. Ryan’s a really good pitcher for us. He’s efficient, throws strikes, keeps our defense in and our defense is solid. So that’s really the story of the game.”
South Hadley ace Tyler Evans wasn’t available to throw for the visitors after picking up a 5-0 win against Ware earlier in the week; instead. Matt McDermott got Saturday’s start, allowing five hits in four innings of work. Matthew Drobiak and Nathan Carillion both came on in relief.
South Hadley finished the game with five hits, and struggled to get anything going at the plate. When its bats did connect with the ball, Granby’s defense was there to make the catch or the play to stop any momentum.
The Tigers’ best chance at getting on the board came in the first, where they loaded the bases. With two outs, Brady Mendoza ripped a line drive that Granby shortstop Ray Toth nabbed to end the inning.
“Our approach at the plate has to be a little bit better. We’ve seen a lot of kids that throw a lot of velocity so we’ve been a little late on some of those things,” Foley said. “And (Gaughan) did a great job. We would battle the fastball, and then he’d break the curveball. He did a really nice job of moving things around. So that’s another thing we have to tackle, but our bat speed has to improve.”
Granby’s mental strength was another advantage on Saturday. South Hadley’s defense was solid for the remainder of the contest, but the Rams remained focused throughout. They nickel and dimed the Tigers offensively, scoring another run in the second, two in the fourth and an additional two in the sixth to build up their lead.
“The thing is we’ve just got to keep that energy up. We sometimes fall off a little bit, but we’ve just got to keep it up, and just make sure we keep going and going. The game isn’t over until it’s over,” Toth said.