Simon Beach/Photo by Noah Clooten
The Devils Lake A team wrapped up a stretch of eight games in four days on Tuesday. Typically, pitching depth would be a major concern in a stretch like that. But Simon Beach really helped rest any concerns, pitching yet another complete game. It was his third of the summer, and second in a row.
It happened to be the same day that the Devils Lake Journal published an article about his passion for umpiring — exemplifying the versatile skillset Beach brings. The Storm (14-7, 11-3) went on the road to play the Fargo Post 2 Bombers (15-5, 3-3), and ultimately split the two games. Beach threw a complete game with incredibly just 60 pitches, but he and the team couldn’t sustain that success into the nightcap.
His outing in that first game, though, was a pretty extraordinary one. In seven innings, he only allowed three hits. He didn’t walk anybody — his second consecutive start doing that. He only struck out one batter; his punchout totals are usually low due to being a contact-oriented pitcher. A lack of strikeouts, lack of walks and lack of hits is a recipe for success in keeping a pitch count low.
Through six innings, he’d only thrown 47 pitches, which is almost unheard of. He actually allowed a hit to the first batter he faced, but didn’t allow another hit until the sixth.
It was a 3-0 victory for the Storm. They scored two in the first inning after Beau Brodina led off with a double, Fausten Olson reached on an error and Jackson Baeth walked.
They tacked on another on Hunter Remmick’s second home run of the summer. Remmick has simply been on a torrid stretch and has played his way into the starting lineup. He’s batting over .400 on the summer.
The Bombers managed a one-out single against Beach in the seventh, giving them their third hit. Beach induced another ground ball, though, resulting in a 5-4-3 double play that ended the game.
Devils Lake only managed six hits of its own, though four of them came from Brodina out of the leadoff spot. Perhaps even more impressively, three of his hits were doubles.
Beach was so efficient that he started the second game as well. He finally cracked, though. A hit by pitch and a single put two runs across the board for Fargo. So, between the two games, Beach pitched eight innings on 83 pitches with two runs allowed.
The pair of runs followed a lone run in the top of the first for Devils Lake. It was an entirely two-out rally for the Storm; Trason Beck reached on an error, and then Baeth and Mason Palmer hit back-to-back singles.
Parker Brodina took over as the long man in Beach’s place. He had a fairly effective if inconsistent outing. He went 3 2/3 innings of relief for Devils Lake, and allowed two runs while walking six and only striking out one.
Fargo Post 2 scored one run in each of the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. The walks caught up to Brodina in the fourth and fifth. Taydon Triepke entered with two outs in the fifth. He surrendered an unearned run in the sixth inning on his own error.
At that point, it was 5-1. The Bombers were marginally stretching the lead and the Storm didn’t have a response. They did tally eight hits, but six of them came from Baeth and Palmer in the middle of the order. Palmer’s third hit was a two-out RBI single in the seventh. That was it, though, with a final score of 5-2.
So it was a doubleheader split. Devils Lake still has the second-best record in the Class A East, behind only Wahpeton. The Storm will finally get a break now, too, after a pretty ruthless streak of games. They get an entire week off, with their next action scheduled for Tuesday at home against Kindred.
