Walks again cost Batavia

Ask any baseball coach and he’ll tell you that walks will kill you.

Batavia’s Matt Holm will attest to that.

For the third time in four games, Batavia pitchers issued 8 walks during Friday’s 7-2 loss to Upstate Eight Conference foe Lake Park.

“We came into this week saying the pitching was a strong point — we were walking one man per game prior to this week,” said Holm. “I don’t know if all of a sudden strike zones have shrunk or we’ve gotten worse pitching, but we can’t hit a strike zone for anything.”

After the Lancers took a 1-0 lead on a second-inning sacrifice fly, they broke the game open with a 6-run third that included a pair of walks, a bunt single, a double, and a couple of bloop hits off of starting pitcher Joe Sortino (0-2).

“When you give up a 6-spot in an inning, it kills you,” said Holm. “The one run in the second inning — we get out of that, OK, that’s something we can come back from.”

Batavia’s scoring was provided by Andrew Scaccia’s 2-run double in the fourth after Sam Burnoski’s 1-out bunt single and Jay Clark’s infield hit.

Braden Hrack and Rob Bowman also had base hits for the Bulldogs (3-4, 1-2).

“We were either chopping everything or underneath everything,” said Holm. “They were much more disciplined than we were.”

Sophomore Christian Taugner was the winning pitcher for the Lancers.