BANGOR, Maine — There’s a lot of pressure on pitchers in the Senior League World Series.
But for Houston, Texas, righthander Michael Resnick, relieving that stress Friday was as simple as one swing of the bat.
Resnick hit a grand slam before anyone was out in the bottom of the first inning, then pitched a complete-game five-hitter as the West University Little League all-stars defeated Makati City, Philippines, 6-1 in an SLWS semifinal at Mansfield Stadium.
The win advances the U.S. Southwest to Saturday’s 3 p.m. world championship game against Fremont, Calif., a 7-6 semifinal winner over San Nicolas, Aruba.
John Williamson and Travis Gauntt each drew a walk off Makati City starter Charles Catangui to open the Houston first, and when Cole Lankford then worked a 2-0 count, the Asia Pacific champs turned to reliever Niklas Sarda.
Lankford walked to bring up Resnick, who blasted a 2-2 knuckleball well over the left-field fence more than 375 feet away to give the Texans a quick 4-0 lead.
“I was just looking for a ball I could put in the outfield to get the guy on third home and start the scoring,” said Resnick. “I knew 2-2 he was going to come with something off-speed, and he just left that knuckleball up in the zone, up in the chest area. I put the bat on it and it just went.”
The home run was Resnick’s fourth of the SLWS, the most hit by any player since the world championship baseball tournament for ages 14 through 16 was moved to Bangor in 2002.
“Nothing makes me happier than when he comes up with the bases loaded,” said Houston manager Trey Cornelius, “because I know that somebody’s going to have to throw to him and somebody’s going to make a mistake at some point.”
Resnick credited the forest-green backdrop beyond the Mansfield Stadium fences as one reason for his power output.
“The ball comes real well off those trees back there, the green trees with the white ball,” he said. “I’ve just been looking for pitches to hit, and I’ve been getting them.”
The early homer provided more a sufficient offensive backdrop for Resnick, who required just 79 pitches to shut down Makati City while striking out six and walking one.
“Our scouting report on them was to go after them because they’re a disciplined team,” said Resnick.
Resnick’s only rough patch came in the third inning, when he hit Vincent Ching with a pitch and Ching scored thanks to back-to-back two-out singles by Sarda and Catangui.
Resnick allowed only two more hits the rest of the way
“On the bus coming over here we went through what we’ve done so far in this tournament, and we’d given up 36 walks and hit batters together,” said Cornelius. “We pointed out that we couldn’t win like that, so we wanted him to go out there and give us a chance to win by pounding the strike zone, and he did exactly that.”
Matt Luna’s two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the third gave the Texans some insurance offense.
The Houston first baseman helped make that lead stand up with two sparkling defensive plays — a diving catch of a line drive to rob Mark Ong of a hit in the fourth inning, and a lunging catch of a popup hit by Sebastian Martinez-Miranda in the fifth.
Sarda was the game’s lone repeat hitter with two singles.
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