As odd as it may sound, Mother Nature may have done the Oakville American Legion baseball team a favor this past weekend.

Oakville (13-12, 6-10 District 10) has been shorthanded most of the season in the pitching department due to injuries and has had to look to its positional players to serve some time on the mound.

Yet pitching wasn’t the problem for Oakville in its 5-4 win over House Springs in its only game of the Anheuser-Busch Tournament at Heine Meine.

“Our players took the game lightly and they (House Springs) put four runs on us in four innings,” head coach Mike Wilhelm told the Call. “It was like we were trying to do just enough to win.”

Oakville starting pitcher Matt Pressler went six innings as he gave up four runs.

“Matt was getting a little frustrated because of some mental errors that gave them their four runs,” Wilhelm explained.

“When it mattered in the fifth and sixth innings, he settled down and pitched well enough for us to win,” he added.

Third baseman Tim Andrew not only launched Oakville’s lone home run of the game in the fourth inning, he also recorded the save on the mound. Andrew currently is batting .314 with eight doubles, three triples and 18 runs batted in.

“Tim started at third and came up with a big home run that obviously made a difference in the game,” Wilhelm said. “He came in and really shut them down to get the save.”

The Oakville team is back in action this week as it travels to Evansville, Ind., for a wooden-bat tournament that gives the players a much-anticipated break from using aluminum bats.

“Woodenbat tournaments are a lot of fun for the guys,” Wilhelm said.

“We’ll have all of our pitchers ready for this tournament, so we’ll see what happens. Fortunately now, we don’t have to pitcher our positional players.”