Christian Heideger’s 5 home runs and 12 RBI paced the Mighty Knucks’ 19-11 wild card win over the RBI Steaks on Saturday.
The bottom of the first saw aggressive base running from the Knucks and a few rare defensive miscues by the Steaks.
Jack Sandstrom’s grand slam put the Steaks ahead 8-7 in the top of the second, but the Knucks’ pitching and defense limited damage over the last four innings while their offense remained steadily productive.
Alex Hatch was the winning pitcher, giving up 8 runs and striking out 6 over the first three innings, while hitting perhaps the hardest ball the league has seen. The lined shot cleared the left-center field fence in the blink of an eye and the radar gun just happened to catch the exit velocity - 102 MPH.
Brandon Wallach was effective out of the pen, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits over three innings to the regular season’s top offense.
The Knucks face a quick turnaround - they’ll play a best of three series tomorrow against the Bilabial Stops at 2:30pm.
