Baseball: Marshall muddles through in 7-1 victory over Eagle Rock

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The 7-1 score of Marshall’s victory over visiting Eagle Rock on Monday, the Northern League opener for both teams, does not tell the whole story.

If there’s such a thing as a ‘tidy’ 11-hitter, it was thrown by Barristers’ starter Simi Machado, now 5-1.

He only had one clean inning, retiring the Eagles (3-5, 0-1) in order in the third. Otherwise Machado constantly worked around base-runners, and Eagle Rock always seemed only one hit away from doing serious damage.

What helped save Machado, until Marshall (9-3, 1-0) broke open a close game with four runs in the sixth, was not walking any one and striking out nine. Machado made it a particularly miserable game for Marcus Rodriguez and Cesar Valladares, the Eagles’ eighth and ninth batters. The two struck out a combined six times and left a collective seven runners on base.

-- Mike Terry