Gauge Driessen
CANDO — In Gauge Driessen’s whole time growing up playing baseball, he’d never hit a home run in a game.
It’s been a long path for the now-graduated Devils Lake local. After tirelessly working his way back from a spinal cord injury, he returned to the baseball field only to get limited playing time on the Firebirds this spring. He joined Cando Post 79 for the summer season, seeing a greater opportunity there.
“It’s been fun. They took me in,” Driessen said. “It’s been probably one of the best summers I’ve played in. I’ve had a lot of fun this year.”
On a sunny, windy Wednesday in Cando, with the regular season already nearing its conclusion, Driessen went out and had the game of his life. He turned in an outstanding performance on the mound, striking out nine in a complete game. He threw 110 pitches and allowed just one unearned run. He worked around four hits and three walks.
Driessen also dinked a home run off the right-field foul pole in a 1-for-1, two-walk, three-RBI performance at the plate.
Not traditionally a power hitter, Driessen can now say he’s hit a home run.
“No,” Driessen said when asked if he expected to hit a home run this summer. “I thought I’d be like a line drive kind of guy.”
His all-around day on the diamond fueled Cando to a 6-1 win over Bottineau Post 42. It was the seventh straight win for the Bearcats in their penultimate day of regular-season action, improving their record to 14-7.
“Gauge threw very well,” Cando head coach Jesse Vote said. “He had them off balance all night long with mixing in his curveball. He was having fun.”
Driessen’s evening started with a couple of traffic jams. He immediately found himself in a pickle as an infield hit put runners on the corners with nobody out in the first inning.
Parker Simon, playing third base, made a reactionary diving catch, and Driessen was almost out of the inning. But with the bases loaded and two outs, Simon booted a ground ball for an error. Bottineau scored its lone run to take an early 1-0 lead. Driessen still struck out two in the frame to limit the damage.
“Our biggest downfall right now is we have that one little mistake, and then our pitchers have to get a little bit deeper in their pitch counts,” Vote said. “And it’s happened to us all year long. We’ve just gotta shore up and make the easy plays for us.”
It was Driessen himself who tied it back up in the bottom of the first, capitalizing on a two-out rally. Rylen Anderson lined a single to right field, sandwiched by a walk from each of the Simon twins to load the bases. Driessen, who’s posted an OBP of well over .400 this summer, drew yet another one of his walks to make it 1-1.
“I still want to be aggressive. If I see a first-pitch fastball, I’m gonna swing. I’m gonna try getting on base,” Driessen said. “But if it’s not there, I’m not gonna swing. I know the zone.”
Hunter Hagler started another two-out rally in the second inning. Brody Svir whacked a double, and Hagler scored on a wild pitch to put the Bearcats up 2-1.
Driessen walked two in the second but got through another bases-loaded jam. He pitched a 1-2-3 third, helped by a long throw from P. Simon behind the third-base bag.
After a roaring double by Karsen Simon, Driessen stepped to the dish in the bottom of the third. He poked one innocently enough in the air to right field, and it just kept carrying. Off the bat, he said he thought it was a simple popup, and that he looked down once it started tailing foul.
“I’m like, ‘Did that just go out?’” Driessen said.
The home-plate umpire initially ruled it a foul ball, but the entire Cando dugout, along with Vote over at third, erupted and insisted it hit the foul pole. The home-plate umpire briefly deliberated with fellow umpire Simon Beach — a former Devils Lake teammate of Driessen’s — and they overturned the call to a home run.
It was a two-run shot to extend the Cando lead to 4-1.
“I kind of got a little bit of joy,” Driessen said of that moment.
After rounding the bases, Driessen settled back in on the mound. After all the traffic of the first two innings, he retired 11 straight Bottineau batters.
“I couldn’t really find it right away,” he said. “And then after I hit that bomb, I kind of settled down, loosened up, got more confidence.”
Driessen gained a more natural feel for his command, especially with his breaking ball and anything on the lower half. He was dealing with a compact, three-quarters delivery all night — something he said he worked on while throwing batting practice. He found that he could be more accurate and use his slider more effectively when throwing from more of a sidearm motion.
The Cando offense manufactured two more runs in the fourth without a hit. Svir reached on a dropped third strike, while Alec Peyerl and P. Simon drew walks in the frame. Driessen, who was rolling, had a 6-1 lead to work with.
His streak of 11 straight retired ended with a one-out single in the sixth. But he just as soon induced a 4-6-3 double play to pitch another stress-free inning. He was at 92 pitches through six innings.
Driessen struck out the side in the seventh, with just a hit by pitch to the second-to-last batter. He ended the game with a breaking ball that caught the plate for his ninth strikeout. The Cando crowd clapped and cheered in recognition of Driessen’s remarkable performance.
“He’s got a nasty curveball, or a nasty offspeed pitch,” Vote said of Driessen’s primary breaker, which has more horizontal movement than a traditional curveball. “Today, we’re fortunate that it was working pretty well for him.”
The Cando Legion team has its fourth straight day of games on Thursday against New Rockford Post 30 in Cando. The Bearcats then have a week off while the Babe Ruth team plays a tournament. The Legion team’s region tournament is set for July 21-23 in Velva. The squad is playing some of its best baseball right now.
“The only thing is, how many arms do we have left? I think we’ll be okay after Gauge went the distance today,” Vote said. “After tomorrow, we’ve got a long break… That’s sometimes good, and sometimes bad. We get our arms back, but then again, we’ve gotta try to squeeze a couple practices in to hit the ball and try to stay where things are headed right now.”
