POCATELLO — When Brody Burch strode to the batter’s box in the bottom of the fifth Friday night, he was one swing away from sending a packed Halliwell Park crowd home happy. He was also one swing from accomplishing a feat about as rare at the Major League level as a no-hitter.
Burch, who had already hit a triple, double and single, was a home run shy of the cycle. And with his Grays (6-12) already leading 9-0 and a runner on second, any hit was likely to end the game via mercy-rule victory over the Brigham City Peaches.
The left-handed hitting lead-off man, who started the game with a triple off the top of the wall in right, swung for the downs on the first pitch he saw. Then he settled his approach in search of a game-ending base hit.
“That first swing … I got a little ahead of myself,” he said. “Then (I was) just trying to stay inside of the ball, not get too ahead of myself, and hope he throws it in the zone I was looking for.”
In a 1-2 count, Burch got the inside fastball he was hunting for and deposited it over the wall in straight-away right for a two-run (mercy rule) walk-off homer in an 11-0 win.
Manager Rhys Pope said after the game that, in his decades around the game, he had never before seen a cycle in-person.
“I’m not taking any credit for it. At all. But I told him he was going to go yard,” Pope said. “I told him it was set up perfectly … and he did it. The kid’s a stud.”
According to
MLB.com
, there have been 349 cycles hit in the 149-year history of the league. There have been 326 no-hitters.
While the home run is the most appealing leg of the cycle, it is the triple that is most difficult. Burch got that one out of the way quickly, sending the second pitch he saw leading off the bottom of the first to the wall in right, then speeding his way into third. He doubled in the same direction later in the same inning, scoring three in what was a seven-run first for the home team.
Burch said his big swing to start the game was just what his club needed, as they brought “a lot of good energy” from the clubhouse to the field.
“Being Grateful Dead Night, there was a lot of people here — we knew it was going to be a big night. Setting the tone early was a big thing,” he said.
Seven was more than enough for Kyler Spracklen.
“Sprack was great,” Burch said. He pounded the zone all game, mixing speeds to keep the Brigham City hitters off-balance, the center fielder added.
Having already cemented himself as Gate City’s most reliable reliever, Spracklen got the start as something of a trial run, according to Pope.
With a shallow pitching staff — due to several key injuries — Pope said the team management decided to give their little right-hander a look as a starter, knowing that a deep playoff run would require more stretched-out arms.
“He’s been more deserving than anybody to get up there, and this is a perfect night to do it — at home, in front of all our great fans on Grateful Dead Night,” Pope said of Spracklen. “He just does what he does: he goes and gets outs.”
What Spracklen did was toss a 5-inning complete game shutout — the first of the season for the Grays — while holding the Peaches to three hits and striking out five.
The Grays are on the road Saturday, for a doubleheader at the Hyrum Hornets.
Still at the bottom of the league’s standings, Burch believes Friday’s win could be what catapults his squad into a winning streak. All season, he said, his team has remained competitive but have seen their chances fall flat in the late innings.
“Games like these, where we get a lot of momentum, it’s just about … carrying this momentum — keep doing what we’ve been doing and hope it goes our way late in the game,” Burch said.
Asked if he will try to convince team owner Terry Fredrickson to make the Grateful Dead Night tie-dyed jerseys the standard uniform following the team’s best win of the year, Burch said “we might have to” with a laugh.
Pope concurred, saying that he is as superstitious as baseball people come, and that everyone on the team, if not superstitious, is “a little-stitious.”
