Hillcats in right situation for Johnson

By Chris Lang
Sports writer
Published: May 1, 2008

Blair Johnson’s discussions with Hillcats pitching coach Bob Milacki have been curt and to the point recently. Despite entering Thursday night’s game with Kinston at City Stadium with a more-than-respectable 2.81 ERA, Johnson wasn’t happy with his last few outings.
Milacki’s advice? Stop giving up the inside half of the plate.
Johnson heeded his coach’s words and attacked Kinston’s batters, throwing three scoreless innings in Lynchburg’s 8-7 win Thursday. With one out in the bottom of the ninth and Kinston’s Jared Goedert on third, Johnson retired the final two batters to preserve the Hillcats’ fourth win over the K-Tribe in five tries this season.
“You work every day out on the field, before practice, throwing bullpens, for those situations,” Johnson said. “You want to be ready for those situations.”
In a game that has been the antithesis of Lynchburg’s season, Hillcat batters picked up their pitching counterparts with timely hitting, rescuing the pitching staff from an atypical off night.
Light-hitting designated hitter Tony Mansolino, who is batting .192, tied the game in the bottom of the eighth with an RBI double, a chopper that bounced over Goedert’s head at third and bounded into left field. Brian Friday followed Mansolino’s clutch hit with another, slamming a Jim Deters pitch up the gut to score Mansolino and give the Hillcats an 8-7 lead.
“I had two strikes, so I was really just fighting,” Friday said. “He threw me fastball in, so I was just trying to fight it off. I got lucky and it went up the middle.
“Lately our offense has really been producing runs, which we struggled with the first few weeks. Our pitching was picking us up. Now our offense is finally picking our pitching up a little bit. Hopefully we can get the two on the same page and start winning a lot more.”
With nothing stirring in the Lynchburg bullpen, the game was in Johnson’s hands. Goedert led off the ninth with a double that caromed off the wall in left center and moved to third when Nick Weglarz grounded out to second.
Hillcats manager Jeff Branson drew the infield in, and Johnson was left with a simple strategy on the mound.
“We’re trying to keep the ball down in the zone and stay hard with the sinker so (the batter) will beat it into the ground,” Branson said.
Johnson forced Carlos Rivero to ground the ball to third. Jim Negrych fielded it, looked Goedert back to the bag and fired to first for the out. Johnson went up 0-2 in the count against the next batter, Jason Denham, and coaxed Denham to chase a changeup in the dirt for the third strike and the final out.
Johnson had allowed runs in his last four appearances and hadn’t held an opponent scoreless since blanking Wilmington for two innings April 13.
“I felt better,” Johnson said. “I haven’t been controlling the inner half of the plate. That’s what they preach to all the young guys. I’ve been very happy with the control of my other pitches. But more or less, I’m attacking the zone, but I’m not controlling the inner half. So guys are getting comfortable at the plate.
“I kind of started that way in the first inning, but after that, I started pounding the inside corner.”
Maybe a little too much. In the eighth, he plunked Kinston’s Jerad Head, a childhood friend from Topeka, Kan., with a fastball. There were no hard feelings, though.
“We already had a laugh about it,” Johnson said. “I’ll buy him dinner.”
NOTES: Hillcats OF Eddie Prasch singled in the first inning to extend his hit streak to nine games, tying Lynchburg’s season-long streak set earlier this year by Negrych. … Hillcats C Steve Lerud went 3-for-3 with two RBIs and a walk. … Kinston entered the game with eight home runs in its first 23 games but crushed two solo shots Thursday, one each by Alex Castillo and Weglarz.