NORTH MANCHESTER - Warsaw baseball coach Will Shepherd sees his team as a talented bunch. But he sometimes wonders out loud what it could be when all the pieces of the puzzle come together.

That is a scary thought.

In an effort that Shepherd deemed "unpolished," Warsaw took it to an improved Manchester team and walked away with a relatively easy 10-2 win Tuesday at Gerold Faudree Field.

"It wasn't a very polished game, but we will take it because this (Manchester) is a very good club," Shepherd said. "They battled us. They always do."

This was no average Squire team that the Tigers handled. After going 3-20 last year, Manchester (4-3) has already shown this year that it can be a team to be reckoned with, including two dominating wins over defending sectional champ Wawasee to open the season.

But Manchester didn't seem to pose much of a problem against Warsaw on Tuesday, especially after a six-run second inning broke the game wide open.

"Offensively, we did some good things early," Shepherd said. "This team will put pressure on other people. But it still comes down to pitching and defense. If we get those parts of the game right, we can really play with the teams on our schedule. We want to get to the point that we expect to win every game and go out and compete with whoever is out there."

The Tigers took another step to improving their pitching with the first outing of the season for senior Evan Miller, who showed promise among his wildness and inconsistency last year.

The big Tiger right-hander threw a complete game against the Squires, allowing only one earned run and striking out six. He still showed signs of his wildness, walking four and throwing three wild pitches. But maybe a difference already was his ability to maintain his composure and not let the bad things snowball into worse things.

"For Evan's first time out, he threw too many pitches, but he knows that," Shepherd said. "But he will get better. I was just glad to see him out there humming it and turning it loose. It makes me feel good to know that we have him ready to go now. It is a another weapon in our arsenal that we need. His tempo was good, and his temperament was better."

While Miller was silencing the Manchester bats, the Tigers' offense was battering Squire starter Dusty Butterbaugh for nine runs in four innings. Butterbaugh hurt himself with a bit of wildness, walking four and hitting three batters, including Joe Stanley twice.

It was the Tigers' six runs in the second that seemed to put things away early. With one out, Stanley was hit by a pitch, Andy Holst walked and Jason Barrett singled to score Stanley. After one run scored on an error by Squire catcher Brady Burgess, Sam Wihebrink walked and Craig Thomas knocked in two runs with a double. Steve Siebenmorgen got an RBI groundout, and Luke Saylor singled in the sixth run.

"No matter how hard you want to, it is tough on you psychologically when things go bad like that," Manchester coach Ron Eberly said. "Especially with young kids, it is tough to fight through it.

"We just can't give those fourth, fifth and sixth outs," he said. "That just kills any baseball team. Those plays weren't easy, but they were certainly makeable."

Manchester had its chances to score after that second inning, but could not come up with the big hit and left nine runners on base in the game.

"We got base runners on, and we hung in there," Eberly said. "We had some chances to score."

Siebenmorgen knocked in four runs for the Tigers, while Riley collected three hits and scored twice. Holst and Barrett also scored two runs each.

Derek Ring had two hits and knocked in a run, while Mitch Eads also had two hits.

Warsaw hosts North Miami today, while Manchester also plays at home today against Peru. [[In-content Ad]]