D.J. Stewart and Kendall Simmons both hit balls Monday night which seemingly hung in the air forever.

Stewart’s first-inning fly ball was hit so high down the left-field line that Batavia’s Troy Johnston had time to run from his shifted spot in left-center to make a diving attempt to catch the ball near the foul-line. The ball bounded out of his glove into foul territory, allowing two runs to score before Stewart ended on up second base.

Simmons’ ball stayed in the air so long because he hit it so far and so hard. His two-run home run in the fifth inning traveled an estimate 429 feet and helped the Williamsport Crosscutters win their season-high sixth consecutive game, 9-3, over Batavia.

Williamsport has won 10 of its last 12 games and the team which couldn’t buy a break in the first month of the season is now catching good breaks and creating its own luck. Last night the Williamsport offense scored six runs off New York-Penn League ERA leader Julio Frias. The bullpen allowed just one run in 8 1/3 innings and for the 12th time in he last 13 games held an opponent to three runs or fewer.

“We’re all feeding off each other and we’re having a great time,” said Stewart, who was 2 for 3 with a pair of doubles. “Win or lose we’re always smiling and enjoying being with each other. So whenever someone does well it makes you want to do well, too. So you feed off that energy and keep it going.”

While Simmons’ two-run blast off Frias in the fifth inning was the most impressively hit ball of the night, Stewart’s first-inning, two-run double may have been the most important. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Williamsport picked up runs on a Logan O’Hoppe RBI walk and a Simmons sacrifice fly. But it almost felt as if only two runs would have been a disappointment.

Batavia scored only two runs in the top of the first inning despite its first six batters of the inning reaching base. When Leonel Aponte and reliever Rafael Carvajal induced three consecutive fly ball outs to end the inning, it felt as if the two-run first inning was a disappointment.

So when Stewart’s fly ball hit Johnston’s glove in fair territory, leading to the two runs, it felt as if the Cutters had truly taken advantage of the situation. It was the first time Stewart drove in multiple runs in a game since June 20 at State College. When he doubled three innings later, it was the first time he had multiple extra-base hits in a game since opening night on June 14.

“In extended (spring training), I had a lot of hits like that so they call it the D.J. Special now,” Stewart said. “It’s nice to see those fall. You’re going to get out more than you’re going to get hits in this game, so each time you get one of those where you just flare it out or tap it off the end of the bat and beat it out, it’s a beautiful thing. It helps us hitters out because we need all the hits we can get.”

“It was big. At the beginning of the season we had the bases loaded a number of times and didn’t execute,” Simmons said. “So to see the focus point of the team coming together and getting the job done is huge.”

Simmons only got an opportunity to bat in the bottom of the fifth inning because Batavia second baseman Ronal Reynoso dropped an O’Hoppe fly ball he drifted back toward right field to catch. That fly ball should have been the end of the inning.

Instead, Simmons ambushed a first-pitch fastball from Frias on the outer half and launched it over the center-field wall just to the left of the extended batter’s eye which has been erected for this month’s Little League Classic. The team-leading seventh home run of the season for Simmons had an exit velocity of 107.3 mph and a launch angle of 23 degrees.

Simmons is only one home run behind Staten Island’s Ezequiel Duran and Mahoning Valley’s George Valera for the most home runs in the league. It was Simmons’ fifth home run in his last eight games, and his third in his last three games against first-place Batavia.

“That’s probably the best ball I’ve hit in my life,” Simmons said. “I knew it had a chance. But this field, I haven’t seen anybody hit it out right there and I haven’t hit it out right there. So I was just hoping that nobody would catch it.”

“I looked at it and said there’s no way, that’s dead center, it’s not going to get out,” Stewart said. “But it just kept going. That boy’s got so much juice in his bat. Seeing him in (batting practice) and seeing him in games smoking balls consistently, it’s so impressive to see.”

Nate Fassnacht added a pair of hits, including a two-run single in the sixth inning in his first action since July 31. And with Carvajal’s 3 1/3 scoreless innings last night, he’s run his consecutive scoreless innings streak to 15.