LEXINGTON, Ohio — Evan Lee was effectively wild with his fastball and downright filthy with his breaking stuff.
The Kent State University-bound Lee struck out eight in four innings of work as Lexington improved to 2-0 with a run rule-shortened 10-0 win over Orrville at Lexington on Wednesday.
The hard-throwing senior right-hander threw 74 pitches, 40 for strikes. He surrendered two hits and walked four.
“Command was an issue, but sometimes you can be a little wild and get away with it,” Lee said. “When I struggle with my fastball it seems to tail out. I was looking to still keep them off-balance by throwing a curve ball. I was throwing it for strikes and getting ahead in the count.”
Lee threw first-pitch strikes to nine of the 16 batters he faced. He gave up singles to Austin Domer in the third and Tre Wright in the fourth before being lifted in favor of Brady Kunkle in the fifth.
“Evan’s command wasn’t there, but his velocity was up where it should be,” Lex coach Kevin Morrow said. “With a few more starts his command will come back to where it was last year.
“His knuckle ball and curveball are pretty good off-speed pitches.”
Miscues: Lexington gave Lee all the support he would need in the bottom of the first with a pair of unearned runs. Lee drew a one-out walk, moved to third when Nick Adams’ fly ball to center was misplayed for a two-base error and scored on Spencer Stierhoff’s sacrifice fly to left. Adams would come around to score on Orrville’s second error of the inning.
“They make a couple of mistakes and we were able to take advantage of them,” Morrow said. “With an inexperienced team like we have, you’ve got to take advantage of those opportunities.”
Orrville committed five errors, resulting in five unearned runs.
“We weren’t ready to play,” Orrville coach Scott Marshall said to his team after the game. “We don’t have the skill set to not show up.”
Lexington added four runs in the bottom of the third for a 6-0 lead. Jacob Odson drove in two runs with a single.
The Minutemen added a run in the fourth and ended it with three in the bottom of the fifth. The final run scored when Kunkle was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
Leaders: Lee doubled in the fifth and scored a pair of runs. Stierhoff scored twice, while Odson had two RBIs.
“We had some guys hit the ball hard,” Morrow said. “We hit the ball better later in the game.”
Experimenting: Morrow and his staff have juggled the starting lineup the first two games. The Minutemen have some holes to fill after losing a talented senior class.
“We’ve been platooning quite a bit so far to see what we’ve got,” Morrow said. “It’s better for us to play full games because we want to get kids at bats. You need as many innings as you can get.”
The Minutemen lost pitchers Brody Basilone and Zach Temple to graduation.
“We lost a couple of good ones,” Morrow said. “We’re going to have to find a No. 2 and a No. 3 behind Evan.”
Hunter Biddle picked up his first career win in Lexington’s 9-4 win at Orrville on Tuesday.
Leadership: Lee has taken on a more active role in helping develop Lexington’s young team.
“He’s the best leader to come through here in my 10 yeas here,” Morrow said. “He really looks after the younger players and tries to develop them. He’s an extension of our coaching staff.”
Lee has embraced the responsibility.
“We have a lot of sophomores that are very talented,” Lee said. “Being a senior, a lot of the younger guys look up to me. I try to be an on-field coach.”
