Door splits with Combine

St. Mary’s hurler pitches through Lyme disease en route to shutout

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008

At the time, Conden was recovering from an infection in his toe. But even though medication had cured him of the ailment, he still felt fatigued. After another trip to the doctor, Conden was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

Sunday afternoon, a week later, at the Hawk’s Nest at St. Mary’s College, Conden found himself starting for St. Mary’s in the second game of a doubleheader against Combine It was a game his Door team desperately needed to win to stay in the playoff hunt in the Coors-Charles-St. Mary’s Baseball League.

Conden came through for the Door (16-8), pitching a 2-0 complete-game shutout as St. Mary’s earned a split against Combine (15-10).

‘‘I felt good,” said Conden. ‘‘I actually struggled with the mound, the footing, but my arm felt great in the bullpen. It didn’t really translate, but I was in the zone enough to be effective.”

Conden allowed only three hits in the game and struck out seven. He said he still has a few days of treatment left for his Lyme disease, but is feeling better since the infection was caught early.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site, www.cdc.gov, Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.

‘‘He’s a warrior,” said St. Mary’s manager Steve De Barr. ‘‘He’s always been our go-to guy. He found out last Sunday [about the Lyme disease], the morning before a game, and still came and pitched three innings of the game for us.”

Conden’s run support was few and far between, but was just enough for the Door to earn the victory.

The first run of the game came on a Chris D’Antuono double down the left field line that scored Jason Bean in the bottom of the first inning. That was all the run support Conden needed, but the Door added an insurance run late in the game with a sixth-inning RBI single by John Childers.

‘‘The pitches that I could hit, I hit hard,” said D’Antuono. ‘‘Unfortunately, there were a couple of at-bats where they worked me off-speed. But if they get the ball up, I usually know what to do with it.”

D’Antuono said his team was desperate entering Game 2 after losing the first game to Combine, 3-1. Until Conden’s gutsy second-game performance, it looked as though the pitching performance of the day would belong to Combine’s Clarke Rollins, who pitched all eight innings of the first game, allowing only one run, a first-inning unearned run.

After Combine tied the game in the fifth inning on a double steal, the game went into extra innings after the teams were knotted at 1 through the regulation seven frames played in doubleheaders.

Rollins stayed in the game for the win after his team grabbed two runs in the top of the eighth.

The first run came on an RBI triple by Justin Rabon and he later scored the second run when catcher Mike McAllister got caught in a rundown trying to steal second.

‘‘At the beginning of the game, I didn’t have all of my stuff, but as the game went on, I kept getting better,” said Rollins. ‘‘The defense made a lot of plays for me and kept me in the game. Once the game got going and the defense got better, the location of my pitches got better and a little bit more effective.”

Both St. Mary’s and Combine have been slumping at the plate lately and that trend continued on Sunday with only six runs combined between the two teams in 15 innings.

Neither manager seemed too worried with the slump after the games on Sunday, as each said they expect their teams to break out of the slump in time for the playoffs.

‘‘It’s not just one or two guys,” said De Barr. ‘‘Up and down the lineup, we’ve been pretty flat. I can’t explain it –– we’ve got a lot of good hitters on this team.”

Each team noted the importance of the two games, as both are battling for the final two league playoff spots with the end of the regular season just two Sundays away.

Currently, St. Mary’s is sitting in third place in the league with four games yet to be decided and Combine is sitting in fourth, 1 1⁄2 games behind the Door, with three games left.

‘‘Hopefully we get there,” said Combine manager Rudy Carrico. ‘‘St. Mary’s has a tough schedule and our schedule on paper isn’t as tough, so we’ll have to see.”