BELOIT — Miami Marlins 2023 fourth-round pick Emmett Olson was called up to the Beloit Sky Carp on Saturday after he didn’t allow a single run in three starts with the Single-A Jupiter Hammerheads.
Olson had thrown 16 scoreless innings leading up to his promotion, and he certainly wasn’t going to falter in his Sky Carp debut on Wednesday.
Not with mom and dad in the crowd.
“I’m just an hour from home, so it was great coming here,” said Olson, who grew up in Des Plaines, Illinois, and is a graduate of Maine West High School. “My mom and dad came, and they brought some friends, so it was cool.”
And the left-handed pitcher threw a gem in his first start in Beloit as he allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out three in 5 2-3 scoreless innings to help the Sky Carp beat the Quad Cities River Bandits 6-5 in front of a crowd of 1,839 that was mostly filled with children from area schools for Education Day.
Beloit (12-10) evened up the six-game series with the first-place River Bandits (16-7) at 1-1.
“I came into it feeling pretty well,” Olson said. “An 11:00 a.m. start is a little different, but I just treated it like a normal start. I kept the routine the same. It was great coming here. Great fans for Education Day and being close to home made it a lot easier, too”
Olson didn’t allow a baserunner his first time through the River Bandits’ rotation and, after a Dustin Dickerson double and a Brett Squires walk in the fourth inning, he got a fly out to end the threat.
“Emmett did a really good job of being in attack mode,” pitching coach Jason Erickson said. “We always preach first pitch strikes and getting in a race to two strikes, and he did a really nice job of getting them on their heels and getting them in defense mode. He was executing everything, so it was really fun to watch.”
Olson had another 1-2-3 inning in the fifth and got two outs in the sixth before Dickerson doubled again and Trevor Werner drew a walk. Reliever Kyle Crigger came in and got Squires to ground out and keep the starter’s statline clean.
“Emmett did a nice job moving his fastball around,” Erickson said. “They weren’t really on the heater. He got his changeup involved late, which was good. And he was able to land his breaking balls to protect everything. So, he just did a nice job of getting them going back and forth.”
Olson said the key to staying steady on the mound is embracing the mentality that “every pitch is the same.”
“If there’s a guy in first, there’s a guy on third, if there’s nobody on, you have to execute every time,” he continued. “It’s just about having a good mentality and just trusting your stuff, that’s the main thing. At the end of the day, it’s about trusting yourself and trusting the guys behind you.”
Olson had good reason to trust his defense. He only got three strikeouts, leaving the other 14 outs to the fielders, who didn’t commit any errors.
Meanwhile, the Sky Carp’s offense got cooking against the Quad Cities’ pitching staff, which leads the Midwest Conference with a 3.08 ERA.
After being limited to two hits and shutout 6-0 in the series opener on Tuesday, Beloit plated four runs in the third.
Johnny Olmstead doubled and Andrew Fernandez walked before, one out later, Yiddi Cappe laced a double into left field. In the next at-bat, Jake Thompson crushed a three-run homer that sailed well past the right-field wall.
“It was fun, Thompson said. “I didn’t have one yet this year. And I was like, ‘All right, we got a little bit of wind. I’m just gonna try and get one.’ I got (starter Ben Kudrna) last year on a changeup, and I saw it right away. It was one I could do something with. I was just trying to get something in the air, and when I got it, I was like, ‘Oh, I really got that one.’”
Thompson is hitting .467 with the Sky Carp since joining them on April 23. He had gone 5-for-14 in four games with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, and he spent 89 games in Beloit last season as he hit .279. The last 14 games were then spent in Pensacola where he sported an average of .271.
“Just being competitive,” Thompsons said of his hot start. “I felt like I had a really good spring and had a really great off season. I’m not taking any pitch for granted, going after each one hard and seeing it really well. My swing feels really good.”
Jared Dickey smacked a two-run homer in the seventh to bring the River Bandits within 4-2 but Andrew Fernadnez blasted a two-run bomb of his own in the bottom of the frame to up it to 6-2.
Quad Cities got three runs off Omar Hernenadez’s two-run single and an RBI groundout in the eighth as Dale Stanavich struggled on the mound.
Evan Taylor came in to throw the ninth with a one-run lead and, after a strikeout, allowed a single. But he got a strikeout and a pop out to end the frame and earn his second save of the season.
“He would tell you he probably didn’t have his best stuff on the day, but he was able to grind through it,” Erickson said. “His stuff is so good. When he gets in the zone, he induces a lot of weak contact.”
The Sky Carp finished with seven hits as Chase Luttrell and Olmstead each hit doubles and finished with two.
“We have really great preparation with our coaches and staff,” Thompson said. “We have good plans heading into the game on what to expect, and what we’re looking for. And then we have just a great group of guys that are all pulling for each other. We’re also really competitive. There’s a lot of really good ballplayers in there.”
Beloit will host the River Bandits on Thursday at 6:35 p.m.
SKY CARP 6, RIVER BANDITS 5
Quad Cities 000 000 230 — 5 8 1
Beloit 004 000 20X — 5 7 0
Quad Cities (ab-r-h-rbi) — Jensen, dh, 5-0-1-0, Dickerson, ss, 4-1-2-0, Werner, 3b, 4-1-1-0, Squires, 1b, 3-1-1-0, Hernandez, c, 4-1-2-2, Dickey, rf, 4-1-1-3, Johnson, 2b, 3-0-0-0, Ramirez, cf, 4-0-0-0, Nadal, lf, 4-0-0-0. Totals: 35-5-8-5.
Beloit (ab-r-h-rbi) — Cappe, 3b, 4-1-1-1, Thompson, dh, 3-1-1-3, Zamora, 2b, 4-0-0-0, Montgomery, 1b, 4-0-0-0, DeLeo, rf, 3-0-0-0, Santiago, lf, 4-0-0-0, Olmstead, ss, 3-2-2-0, Fernandez, c, 2-2-1-2, Luttrell, cf, 3-0-2-0. Totals: 30-6-7-6.
E: Squires. PB: Fernandez. DP: QC 1, Beloit 0. LOB: QC 7, Beloit 3. SB: Luttrell (2). CS: DeLeo. 2N: Dickerson, Olmstead, Cappe, Luttrell. HR: Dickey (4), Thompson (1), Fernandez (1).
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-k) — QC: Kudrna L, 2-2, 6-4-4-4-2-7, Garabitos 1-3-2-2-1-0, Johnson 1-0-0-0-0-2. B: Olson W, 1-0, 5 2/3-2-0-0-2-3, Crigger 1 1/3-2-2-2-0-1, Stanavich 1-3-3-3-2-0, Taylor S, 2, 1-1-0-0-0-2.
WP: Kudrna, Garabitos 2. T: 2:18. Att: 1,839.
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