William Spottiswood has been brilliant on the field all year for the South Bend Silver Hawks. He has been brilliant off the field, as well. The
6-foot-3 right hander, who was born in Hawaii and grew up in california, has
made numerous public appearances throughout the South Bend community over the
few months that he has been there, giving back to the Silver Hawks fans
throughout South Bend.
"They do a lot for us, how they come out to see us all the time," explained
Spottiswood. "The Silver Hawks have all their promotions, might as well see
their culture, see what they do. So it was actually more of a pleasure for
me. "They actually treated me really well when I went out to the hospital,
all the camps and stuff."
"It meant a lot having all of those officers and military out there too," he
added, referring to the pre-game ceremony in which dozens of uniformed men were
honored along with him.
Despite the military presence, the West Michigan Whitecaps would not march
around the bases much that night. Starter Jarrod Parker scattered six base
runners over five innings, then Bryan Shaw and Spottiswood combined for four
no-hit, no-walk frames.
"You can't ask for much more than that," pitching coach Erik Sabel said of
his staff's effort Saturday night. "Parker was good. He flirted with
some things early, but his last two innings were pretty dominant. He put
in a good five innings and the bullpen pretty much shut it down."
Spottiswood did need to pitch around two defensive errors; a disturbing
trend, with the Hawks having committed five such miscues in the previous night's
loss. First baseman Chance Wheeless and third baseman Ramon Ramirez each
booted slow grounders during Spotty's turn on the bump, while shortstop Matt Oxendine made a similar miscue in the third. Spottiswood picked up his
teammates.
"I told them, 'it's coming right back to you: just be ready.' Errors
happen. I've done 'em; everyone's done 'em. You've just got to
battle through it."
Spottiswood earned his 12th save and lowered his ERA to 1.91. That ERA
is just a miniscule 1.41 since the end of April.
"I was just pumping strikes, attacking the zone, getting ahead of guys, and
my breaking stuff was there, so it worked out well," concluded Spottiswood
modestly.
Are you a full member of
FutureBacks.com? If not, then you are missing out on the top
Diamondbacks coverage we provide to our premium members, as well as full
access to over 400 other Scout.com sites.
Join us today!