Chinooks make a splash in showcase

A few Lakeshore Chinooks showed their stuff in the Major League Dreams Showcase on Aug. 3 in La Crosse.

The event featured the top 100 players from the Northwoods League displaying their skills for Major League Baseball scouts in drills before facing off in a game between Visiting Team One and Home Team One.

Grafton’s Tommy Lamb, who will pitch for Creighton University next season after spending his freshman year at the University of Oklahoma, entered the game in the bottom of the sixth inning for Visiting Team One and ended up facing a teammate, Orlando Salinas.

The match-up was even more special since the Lamb family is hosting Salinas for the summer.

On a 3-0 count, Salinas bounced out to first base.

 “We both were hoping we could face each other,” Lamb said. “We couldn’t stop smiling. Hey, I got him out so I’m happy.”

Lamb is 2-4 in 11 starts this season with an earned-run average of 3.16, lowest among pitchers with five or more starts. He has whiffed 38 batters and walked 22 in 51-1/3 innings.

After Lamb retired the side in the sixth, Chinook Mitch Mueller whiffed two hitters in the seventh in another 1-2-3 inning.

Tyler Kean, a right-hander from Ohio State University, handled the ninth inning and hit the leadoff batter before shutting the door on Home Team One, earning the save in an 18-16 scoring fest. Kean hasn’t allowed an earned run this summer and extended his streak to 10 straight innings and seven straight games.

“Everybody’s very talented here and everybody’s a tough at-bat,” Kean said.

Chinook Griffin Doersching, one of the top power hitters in the league, had two hits, four RBI and a walk in seven trips to the plate. He has nine home runs and 32 RBI in 49 games this season.

The Chinooks’s game Tuesday at the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders was stopped after 2-1/3 innings due to rain when the Dock Spiders held a 3-0 lead. The game will not be made up.

The Chinooks, 12-20 and in last place of the six-team Great Lakes West Division, finish their season this week.

On Wednesday and Thursday, they were to host the Madison Mallards. On Friday, they play at the Green Bay Booyah, and on Saturday they host the Booyah at Concordia University Wisconsin’s Kapco Park in Mequon. All games are at 6:35 p.m.