Batavia’s Rutas no-hits Streamwood

Updated: April 26, 2011 11:10AM

The streak is over for Streamwood.

The Sabres opened the season with 14 straight wins, but that came to an abrupt end on Monday when Batavia’s Michael Rutas fired a no-hitter to lead the Bulldogs to a 4-0 Upstate Eight Conference River Division road win.

Rutas walked just two batters and struck out five in the complete-game gem. Two other Sabre batters reached on errors, but only three balls left the infield against the senior right-hander.

The closest the Sabres came to a hit was when Bobby Post hit a dribbler to the right side in the seventh inning that first baseman Joe Sortino ranged to his right to field and then tossed to Rutas covering the bag to beat Post by a step.

“It’s an awesome feeling that I can’t even explain,” said Rutas. “I didn’t even realize I had a no-hitter going until around the fifth inning. You try not to get too caught up in it because you don’t want to lose focus. But it was definitely in the back of my mind. I just kept going after each hitter one at a time and my teammates helped me out a lot in the field”

Rutas faced the Sabres just last Wednesday and lost 5-0, but in that game he only allowed one run through the first six innings before running out of steam late. Rutas decided to give the Sabres a different look in the rematch.

“They started catching up with my fastball the last time I faced them,” said Rutas. “So I decided to go with more junk this time. I had a good curve and splitter going so I stuck with it and just spotted my fastball when I needed to.”

Rutas (3-1) had the Sabres off balance from the outset as he mowed down the first 11 batters with nine groundouts and two flyouts. The Sabres got their first baserunner with two outs in the fourth when Richie Gorski reached on error on a groundball to second base.

It was the only baserunner the Sabres had until the seventh inning. Rutas then struck out five of the next seven batters before running into trouble in the seventh. Streamwood (14-1, 8-1) loaded the bases with two outs on two walks and an error, but Rutas closed it out when he got his pitching counterpart Josh Harris to ground out back to the mound as Rutas ran to touch first base for the final out. Rutas threw 102 pitches, 62 for strikes.

“That’s actually four straight incredible outings for him,” said Batavia manager Matt Holm. “But this takes the cake. He kept them off balance all game and showed a lot of composure down the stretch.”

Batavia (4-10, 2-8) had it’s own problems against Streamwood’s ace Harris, but facing tough pitching is nothing new for the Bulldogs. The last four starters Batavia has faced had a combined record of 16-0.

The Bulldogs had just three hits until Danny Seiton led off the sixth with an opposite field homer on an 0-2 pitch from Harris (4-1). Batavia tacked on three more in the seventh with the help of three Streamwood errors. Braden Hrack had an RBI single.

“You have to tip your cap to their kid on the mound. He pitched a gem,” said Streamwood coach Steve Diversey. “He threw a lot of off speed stuff and had great command. But we’re resilient and we’ll get right back at it tomorrow. Today just wasn’t our day.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.