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Brocato, Knapp a cut above in Wild Things’ win

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Though no official record has been kept, it’s believed that right fielder Anthony Brocato did something Saturday night that no other Wild Things player accomplished in the franchise’s 21 Frontier League seasons: he hit a home run despite having stitches in his hand.

Brocato’s two-run homer and Stephen Knapp’s six shutout innings sparked Washington a 6-2 win over the Lake Erie Crushers before a sellout crowd of 3,195 Saturday night at Wild Things Park.

Brocato’s home run, off Lake Erie’s Nathan Holt (1-2), gave Washington a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning. It came in Brocato’s first game back in the lineup after being hit in the right hand Wednesday night in a game at Florence.

When the pitch hit Brocato’s hand, which he extends below the knob of the bat, it pinched the skin on the fleshy part of the hand, below the pinky finger, against the knob. The force split open Brocato’s hand and put a damper on his 27th birthday.

Instead of celebrating with some friends after the game, which was the plan, Brocato went to a hospital emergency room.

“I told the doctor at the ER that I would need three stitches,” Brocato recalled. “They only put in two stitches. When I saw our team doctor, he said I should have had three.”

Brocato sat out games Thursday and Friday because of the hand. The injury could not have come at a worse time because Brocato was swinging a hot bat. He had 13 hits in the previous six games and smacked two home runs Tuesday at Florence.

“It was frustrating, but pitchers have been pounding me inside all year,” Brocato said.

The home run against Lake Erie was Brocato’s team-leading sixth of the season.

Knapp (2-0) cut through the Crushers’ lineup with an assortment of tailing fastballs and sidearm breaking balls. He allowed four hits and two walks. The righthander looked much more like the guy who started the season with 6 1/3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen the one who yielded six runs in 3 1/3 innings in his first start of the year on May 25.

“Tonight was typical Knapp start. There might be times when he might not look good, but he usually attacks the strike zone, he uses the hitters’ aggressiveness against them to create a lot of rollovers and flyballs. He competes.”

Everybody in the Washington lineup was highly competitive on this night. All nine starters had at least one hit. Designated hitter Wagner Lagrange drove in two runs with a double and sacrifice fly.

Washington took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Scotty Dubrule walked, stole second base and scored on Lagrange’s double to left field.

Brocato made it 3-0 with his home run, and Lagrange’s sac fly and an RBI single by Andrew Czech pushed the lead to 5-0 in the fifth.

Tristian Peterson led off the bottom of the sixth with a walk and eventually scored on a Nick Gotta single.

Lake Erie’s only runs came in the seventh against reliever Andrew Mitchell, on an RBI single by Kenen Irizarry and a fielder’s choice grounder by Santiago Chir

Washington climbed back to the .500 mark at 10-10. … The Wild Things have won the first two games of the series, each by 6-2 scores.

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