{"id":2667,"date":"2024-06-25T16:33:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:24:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:24:26","slug":"hitting-woes-haunt-the-coal-cats-in-burlington-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/2024\/06\/25\/hitting-woes-haunt-the-coal-cats-in-burlington-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitting Woes Haunt the Coal Cats in Burlington Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethan Peltier<\/a>
\nTuesday, June 25, 2024
\nFollowing a split doubleheader with the Johnson City Doughboys, the Tri-State Coal Cats hosted the Burlington Sock Puppets for a four-game series. The Coal Cats struggled to hit the ball against Burlington, leading to three straight losses. Heading into the series, the Sock Puppets held a 7-6 record, while the Coal Cats were at an even 6-6 record.<\/p>\n

Despite throwing a combined 17 strikeouts in the first game of the series, the Coal Cats suffered a crushing 10-0 defeat. Burlington set the tone early, scoring three runs in the top of the first inning, and maintained control throughout the game. Tri-State\u2019s bats were quiet, failing to capitalize on any scoring opportunities. A six-run rally by Burlington in the seventh inning sealed the Cats fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys are just trying to do too much,\u201d said manager, Tommy Gregg, regarding his team\u2019s pitching. \u201cWhen we\u2019re down, the pitchers come out trying to do more than they probably should.\u201d\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The game got out of hand partly due to Tri-State\u2019s nine total walks. Coupled with a poor batting performance, it was clear why the Coal Cats struggled.<\/p>\n

In game two, the story was similar with Burlington securing an 8-3 victory. The Coal Cats squandered multiple golden opportunities, leaving 14 runners stranded on base.<\/p>\n

About a third of the way into the season, it\u2019s evident that poor batting has been the Coal Cats\u2019 Achilles\u2019 heel. After the second straight loss, Gregg remarked, \u201cWe\u2019re not really looking for our pitch, it\u2019s like we\u2019re trying to guess what [the pitcher] might throw, and that gets you in a bad funk.\u201d<\/p>\n

The slump continued in game three, with Tri-State falling 2-1. Burlington\u2019s pitching duo of Ryan Hench and Gabe Magallan stifled the Coal Cats, allowing only five hits while racking up 15 strikeouts. A fielding error in the sixth allowed Burlington to score the game-winning run.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Frustration mounted in the Tri-State dugout. Especially after several controversial calls from the umpires.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose change the game,\u201d said Gregg about the officiating. \u201cThat\u2019s beside the point. We [got to] make better contact, we [got to] stay in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tri-State managed to avoid a sweep by winning the final game of the series 8-5. The game went back and forth, with the Cats taking an early 4-0 lead in the bottom of the second. Burlington responded with five runs of its own to make the score 5-4. Isaac Turner and CJ Richard managed to bunt in three more runs in the bottom of the fourth, making the score 7-5. An insurance run was added on in the bottom of the sixth, and Tri-State held on for a much-needed win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe let \u2018em back in the game, but you know what, [we] didn\u2019t get down on ourselves,\u201d said Gregg following the win.<\/p>\n

Now standing at a record of 7-9, Tri-State will prepare to travel to Greenville, Tennessee to take on the Bristol State Liners. Game one of that series is set to kick off tonight at 7pm E.T. at Pioneer Park.<\/p>\n

Until then, you can catch more Tri-State Coal Cats coverage in the \u201cCoal Cats Corner\u201d section of our website, which you can access here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can listen to the audio version of this story\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethan Peltier Tuesday, June 25, 2024 Following a split doubleheader with the Johnson City Doughboys, the Tri-State Coal Cats hosted the Burlington Sock Puppets for a four-game series. The Coal Cats struggled to hit the ball against Burlington, leading to three straight losses. Heading into the series, the Sock Puppets held a 7-6 record, while<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1052,"featured_media":2670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11,77,104,100,69,109],"class_list":["post-2667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wmul-sports","tag-baseball","tag-coal-cats-corner","tag-ethan-peltier","tag-fm88-sports","tag-huntington-wv","tag-tri-state-coal-cats"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/files\/101_0845-Edited.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4729,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions\/4729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}