Pirates can’t keep up with Columbia Hickman firepower in 8-4 loss at home

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Patrick Arthaud may have bragging rights over his brother, Alex, for a little while.

Patrick, a junior infielder on the Hannibal baseball team, belted his first career home run in the fifth inning of Thursday’s game against Columbia Hickman. The home run trimmed the Pirates’ deficit to 8-3, and the Kewpies won 8-4.

“I didn’t think it was gone,” Patrick Arthaud said of his solo blast to right center field at the Veterans Sports Complex. “I’d never hit one before so I didn’t know what it felt like to be gone.”

Patrick believes that home run gives him a leg up in the Arthaud household for the time being.

“I think so,” Patrick Arthaud said. “(Alex) still brags that he’s hit more than me, but I have some (bragging rights) for now.”

Alex, a junior catcher who has “three or four” home runs under his belt, does not think so.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “He doesn’t. I’ve still hit more than him.”

Pirates coach Ian Hatton welcomes that competitiveness amongst the Arthaud brothers.

“If they want to compete that way and keep hitting this way, I’ll be happy with it,” Hatton said.

Alex nearly matched his brother two innings later when he hit a double off the left-field wall leading off the seventh inning. Patrick took a friendly stab at his brother when asked if he thought the ball had a chance of leaving the ballpark.

“Kind of, but I know he doesn’t have any juice,” Patrick Arthaud said.

Alex admittedly did not get every stitch of that ball, but he was satisfied with the result.

“It was really a defensive swing because I was at two strikes, but it hit the fence, so I wasn’t mad,” Alex Arthaud said.

The Pirates scored a run in each of the first two innings to take a 2-0 lead, but the Kewpies strung together five hits and a sacrifice fly to cash in five runs in the top of the third and had three run-scoring hits in the fourth to extend their lead to 8-2.

“They swung it well for those two innings, but it felt close to me,” Patrick Arthaud said.

Pirates starting pitcher Cole Baxter blanked the Kewpies in the other five innings and completed all seven on 97 pitches.

“He’s not out there to blow pitches by anybody, but he’s pretty crafty, and he’s able to move the ball around and mix his pitches, and he’s very efficient, which has been a big help,” Hatton said of Baxter. “He gave us a chance, and he was efficient enough to get through seven innings, and with a short-handed pitching staff, we need it.”

After back-to-back singles by Brody Wilson and Gavin Dudley with one out in the bottom of the sixth, Wilson scored on a wild pitch to make it an 8-4 game. Scott walked to bring the tying run to the on-deck circle, but Kai Stubbs struck out Reid Holliday, then second baseman Hank Cummings ranged to his left to rob Patrick Arthaud of a base hit to end the inning. The Pirates went down in order after Alex Arthaud’s double in the seventh.

“We’ve been in that spot before, and we know that we can put up three or four runs to tie a game or get ahead late,” Hatton said. “We’ve done that recently. We knew we weren’t out of it. Sometimes if just doesn’t go your way. 

“Baseball is a tough sport. I’m proud of the way they handled themselves mentally through the game to stay in it, especially when we got down early. It would be very easy to lay down and just be done with it, but our guys don’t do that. All you can ask for is a chance late in the game, and we had it.”

Hannibal (10-13) plays host to Palmyra on Friday.