BLOOMFIELD -- After sluggish performances over a 10-day span, the Twin Rivers baseball team wanted to find its spark again Tuesday.
It didn't take long.
The Royals scored three times in the first inning and never looked back, drawing 10 walks and getting a strong pitching performance from Preston Martin in a 13-0, five-inning victory at Bloomfield.
"It feels good to get back to winning," Twin Rivers coach Jared Stockton said. "We still only had five hits. They gifted us some with some walks and errors, but a win's a win and we'll take it."
Martin needed just 53 pitches to get his first complete game shutout. The sophomore struck out three, walked one and hit a batter in his second career start.
"I just came out and tried to throw strikes, get groundballs and outs," Martin said. "It was just a matter of mixing my stuff up to keep them guessing."
Martin was working in front throughout, as the Royals (4-3) wasted no time jumping on top of the Wildcats (0-8), scoring three times on a hit, three walks and an error.
Leadoff man Jackson Siebert was hit by a pitch to open the game and stole second. Jamie Robards drew a walk and both runners moved up on Zac Hardin's groundout before scoring on Tanner Ledbetter's two-run double to the gap in left-center field. Ledbetter took third on a passed ball during the next at-bat and came around to score an a throwing error for a 3-0 advantage.
That lead was more than enough for the visiting Royals, who moved back above .500 and stayed patient at the plate.
Of Twin Rivers' 10 free passes, seven came with 3-2 counts. The Royals had four batters with two walks or more. Robards drew three and also hit a two-run double. Ledbetter was 1 for 4 with three RBIs, Jalen Hicks went 2 for 3 with a walk and three RBIs and Wyatt Doser was 0 for 1 with two walks, a hit by pitch and a run scored.
"We were getting the counts up there and that's good to see when we're patient and not chasing stuff," Stockton said. "That was a bright side to our offense."
The Royals made it 5-0 in the second, with Hicks being hit by a pitch on a 3-2 count, advancing to second on Allen Hendrix' sac bunt and taking third on Siebert's groundout. Robards drew his second walk to chase Bloomfield starter Ethan Pennington from the game.
Pennington struck out one, walked three and hit two batters in 1 2/3 innings before he was lifted for Dustin Debeaux.
Debeaux walked Hardin, the first batter he faced, before a groundball off the bat of Ledbetter snuck past the second baseman allowing both runs to score.
Debeaux worked around two walks to escape a scoreless third inning but ran into trouble in the fourth as Robards drew a one-out, four-pitch walk. He advanced to third on Hardin's double and scored a batter later on Ledbetter's RBI groundout.
Martin helped himself with an RBI single and scored one pitch later when Aaron Mittelstadt reached on an error to make it 8-0. Debeaux gave up one more run on Jalen Hicks' RBI single before being lifted for Nick Carter.
"It's tough to make a game out of it when you give good teams those easy breaks," Bloomfield coach John Simpher said. "All year we've been trying to eliminate extra opportunities, making teams drive the baseball to score runs, and it hurt us today."
The Royals tagged Carter for four more runs (three earned) in the fifth, as they sent 10 batters to the plate.
Robards drove in a run with his double and scored on an error while Hicks plated two more runs with his second single of the day.
Carter, Dalton Phillips, and Gavin Chasteen had the only hits for Bloomfield, which put two runners on with one out in the bottom of the fifth before hitting into a game-ending double play.
"I think we just need some more work," Simpher said. "A lot of the kids haven't thrown a lot of innings and we just need work in game situations."