Baysox Notebook: Hoes, Mahoney Help Make Baysox A Hit

There’s a very simple reason to explain why the Baysox have suddenly looked like an outstanding offensive team during their seven-game winning streak—the middle of their lineup is eating up opposing pitchers.

LJ Hoes and Joe Mahoney have anchored the middle of the Bowie batting order and really given the Baysox some punch. That’s a big reason they’ve got a 48-41 record and sit alone in second place in the Eastern League’s Western Division.

Hoes has a .341 average with seven RBI in the last 10 games. Mahoney is doing almost as well, hitting .333 with two homers and eight RBIs during the same period.

When someone is on base, those two often come through. But the rest of the team isn’t doing badly either.

The Bowie offense, long dormant this season, is suddenly alive. They’ve gotten at least 10 hits in their last five games.            

“Attention to detail and staying in the strike zone has been the key,” said Bowie hitting coach Denny Hocking. “Early on, we faced the best pitching staff in the league in Richmond, and they do a great job of expanding the strike zone.

Then we went and played Altoona and Binghamton; when the team got hot, it was guys laying off pitches. It’s a lot easier to hit when you are ahead in the count as opposed to behind in the count.”

PITCHING HELP

Oliver Drake certainly fared better the second time around.

Drake got blasted in two appearances with Bowie earlier this season, giving up 11 runs in four innings over two starts. But he went back to Class A Frederick, got himself together and arrived at Bowie again this week. Drake then went the distance in .

Drake was 8-3 with a 2.14 ERA at Bowie and became one of the Carolina League’s top pitchers. He didn’t miss a beat on Thursday night.

He threw 113 pitches and turned in the franchise’s first complete game since Brad Bergesen did it only July 28, 2008.

Drake was dominating, striking out 10 and giving up just two runs on seven hits.

“I was able to get ahead of guys and get a lot of ground balls,” Drake said. “There were some adjustments that I needed to make that I wasn’t able to execute my first time up here. I added some run to my fastball and depth so I’ve been able to get a lot more ground balls off of that, and that’s really been the key to my success.”