Garrett Anderson receives congratulations from his teammates after hitting a home run against St. Clair.

The Blue Earth Pirates trailed the Minnesota Lake Royals 5-4 after seven innings but rallied with two runs in the top of the eighth inning and held on for a 6-5 win. The game was played in Minnesota Lake on Wednesday, July 22.

Garrett Anderson went the distance on the mound for the Pirates. The hard-throwing right hander struck out 14 Royal batters, issued three walks and gave up 11 hits.

His counterpart for the Royals, TJ Nowak, pitched eight innings and struck out eight batters, walked nine and allowed seven hits.

The Pirates took an early lead when switch hitter TJ Schmidtke, batting left-handed against the right-handed throwing Nowak, launched a fly ball over the fence in right field for a solo home run and a 1-0 Pirates lead in the top of the first inning.

The Royals scored once in the bottom of the second inning to tie the game at 1-1.

Kane Malo’s sacrifice fly brought home Karson Legred from third base in the top of the third inning to put Blue Earth on top 2-1. Legred had doubled to lead off the inning and moved to third on an infield hit.

The Royals scored two runs in the bottom of the third to take a 3-2 lead. They were poised to add more to their total with a runner at third base with only one out. Anderson struck out the last two batters of the inning to strand the Minnesota Lake runner at third.

Anderson then struck out all three Royal’s batters in the bottom of the fourth inning and their first batter in the bottom of the fifth inning for six consecutive strike outs.

Meanwhile, the Pirates offense produced two runs in the top of the fourth inning to take a 4-3 lead.

The Royals managed one run in the bottom of the fifth inning to tie the game at 4-4.

The score remained tied at 4-4 until the bottom of the seventh inning when Minnesota Lake was able to score one run to go up 5-4.

TJ Stallman led off the top of the eighth inning for the Pirates and got on base with a walk. He stole second base and scored on a double by Anderson to tie the game 5-5.

A single by Lee Hodges advanced Anderson to third base. Anderson scored what proved to be the winning run when the Royal’s left fielder dropped a fly ball off the bat of Karson Legred.

Anderson retired six of the last seven batters he faced to secure the 6-5 victory for the Pirates.

St. Clair 11, BE 3

The Blue Earth Pirates fell to the St. Clair Wood Ducks 11-3 in baseball action in Blue Earth on Sunday, July 19.

The Wood Ducks scored twice in the top of the first inning, added four more runs in the third and five more in the fourth to take an 11-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.

Lee Hodges and Anders Fering both singled for the Pirates to give Blue Earth two base runners in the bottom of the fourth inning. Keegan O’Brien delivered a two-out single to drive in Hodges with the Pirates first run.

Blue Earth added a single run in the bottom of the fifth inning. The Pirates final run of the game came in the bottom of the seventh inning courtesy of a solo home run off the bat of Garrett Anderson.

Brandyn Olsen and Zach Schonrock pitched the first four innings for the Pirates. Veteran Kane Malo came on in the fifth inning and tossed five innings of shutout baseball.