MENOMONIE — The Plum City Blues dropped a pair of close games on the Fourth of July in Menomonie 11-8 against Menomonie and 7-6 against Bloomer. The bats were hot at times but struggles defensively and with timely base hits cost the team.

“We stopped hitting there for a few innings when we had guys on, and that’s kind of been the way the season's gone, bad defense and untimely hitting,” Manager Tony Garner said.
Plum City has knocked on the door of some phenomenal league wins but has just come up short. Against 5-2 New Richmond, the Blues lost a high scoring affair 13-10. Against a Hudson team that is 8-0 in league play, Noah Gansluckner mashed a three-run home run in the seventh inning to cut the River Rat lead to 6-5; however, Hudson pulled away with an 11-5 win.

“Better defense, we need to make the plays when you have to make them, especially against really good teams like the RF’s, the Hudson’s; New Richmond’s got a really nice team this year. We’ve just got to finish games,” Garner said. “We’ve walked too many for sure this year already, and then the defense has to play perfect, and we’re a pretty young group of kids, that doesn’t always happen.”

With five league games remaining before the playoffs, Garner wants to see an increase to the team’s consistency. He said he expects leaders like Mitch Thomas and Lance Johnson to find a groove and hopes the rest of the team can follow suit.

The extremely young team is looking to find a footing in a league that is much different than what they got used to through high school.

“Some of those guys are getting jammed and not getting their hands through. They’re used to that aluminum bat,” Garner said.

“Overall, we’re a pretty young team, and we’re trying to figure out ways to grab some W’s,” Garner said. “They haven’t quit, so that was kind of nice. I’ve had some teams in the past that we’ve just kind of, ‘Well, we’re going to lose this one. Here’s another day of losing,’ but these guys have had really positive attitudes.”

Plum City has two remaining home games, taking on Spring Valley and Ellsworth July 18 at 1 p.m. and July 19 at 1 p.m. as part of the always exciting Plum City Summer Festival.

“It would be nice to play more consistent baseball,” Garner said. “Hopefully, starting [against Eau Claire on July 6], we can start being a little more consistent… It would be nice to win three out of those [final five league games], if not all of them.”