Wild win ends Rascals' skid

By Chris Gump

Jeff Miller's curse was lifted.

The River City Rascals broke their season-long losing streak of seven games with a 10-7 victory Wednesday at T.R. Hughes Ballpark. No one was happier than the team's newest No. 3 hitter.

"I've been here this is my eighth game and we lost the first seven out of seven," said Miller, who was 3-for-5 with a pair of RBIs. "So it kind of felt like a load off. All baseball players are superstitious so when you're losing you kind of feel like you brought some bad karma in. So getting this win tonight was definitely a big win for us."

It was the eighth win of the season for Rascals right-hander Steve Brook (8-4), who surpassed the pre-2007 Frontier League record for career victories with his 30th (Former Rascal Aaron Ledbetter has extended the mark this season.). Brook needed 112 pitches to get through five innings, gave up nine hits and was charged with seven runs, only one of which was earned.

Most of the damage to Brook came in one wild rush. River City (25-40) fell into a 6-0 hole, then took an 8-6 lead in a 45-minute span otherwise known as the third inning.

All told, the frame featured 24 plate appearances, 10 hits, three errors, five hits, a hit batter and eight unearned runs. In the Chillicothe half, two errors charged to the Rascals' Brad Hough allowed the inning to continue and the Paints followed with three separate two-run hits.

Miller, Bobby Mosby and Hough all had RBI hits in the Rascals' eight-run romp that followed. Paints starter Brian Marshall faced five batters in the inning without recording an out; reliever Brian McCullough (0-1) fared a little better and wound up with the loss.

"The guys swung the bats," said Rascals manager Toby Rumfield. "We were down 6-0 and came back. They never give up. We've taken a lot of hard losses and they still come back the next day. Any way you can get it, we feel good about it."

The Paints (31-34) trimmed the deficit to a run with three straight two-out hits versus Brook in the fifth. From there, the succession of River City relievers Joseph Newman, Jordan Thomson, Ryan Doherty and Mike Benacka combined for four hitless innings.

Newman is listed on the Rascals' roster as an outfielder, but looked awfully good as a left-handed reliever. He worked 1} innings and struck out two. All three batters that faced Benacka in the ninth struck out swinging as he earned his 12th save.

Chris Bielski, who got his first hit as a Rascal, and Miller drove in the team's two insurance tallies in the seventh. Catcher Ken Lup Jr. was 2-for-5 with a pair of RBIs and Hough was 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI. Leadoff man Jeff Landry was 0-for-1 but walked four times. He had three walks in the first three innings, including a pair when he scored twice in the third.

Save the third inning, the Rascals would have made quick work of their victory were it not for a 25-minute seventh-inning stretch.

After the usual rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" the lights were turned out for a fireworks display in honor of the team's nightlong "Salute to America's Troops."

The break was needed to get the fireworks in prior to the city of O'Fallon's 10 p.m. noise curfew. The rest of the time was spent waiting for the lights to cool down and return to their former glory.

In the interim, Brook had time to audition as a hitter by knocking a Wiffle ball into the dugout and crowd. A good chunk of the fans drifted out and the smoke from the fireworks drifted in.

When the game resumed in the haze, Hough knocked the first pitch he saw for a single and it was one of three straight hits the Rascals managed versus Jason Quarles, who had worked a perfect sixth.

It was not your typical night at the ballpark to say the least.

"I've never had a game where we had to stop so that we could get fireworks in, so that everyone else can kind of get on with their night," Miller said. "That's definitely a first for me."

Rascals notes: The team drew more than 4,000 fans on consecutive weeknights - 4,240 on Tuesday and 4,130 Wednesday. ... Tuesday's win was also the Rascals' first in eight attempts since all-star outfielder Phil Laurent signed with the San Diego Padres organization. ... Bobby Mosby's next home run will set a new Rascals individual season record. Mosby has 19 home runs, which ties him with former Rascals Mike Conner and Mike Madrid. Mosby tied the record in game one versus Chillicothe, and he's currently riding a 10-game hitting streak.