Nashua infielder A.J.Kolb is waiting to tag sliding New Britain runner Jackon Wein during Sunday's FCBL game at Historic Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It never fails.

Teams that walk 10 opposing hitters during the course of a game will not wind up in the win column.

“I just told them that,” Silver Knights manager Nick Guarino said after the Knights handed a 3-1 win over to New Britain after leading1-0 after seven full innings. “But the fact we walked 10 guys and it was only a 3-1 ballgame shows how good the pitching is and how good the defense is.”

And the other usual baseball occurrence is after you plate runs aplenty – the Knights beat Norwich 16-0 Saturday night – the feast usually turns into a famine. And that’s what the intimte crowd of 562 at Historic Holman Stadium saw.

“It’s the law of averages on that one,” Guarino said. “We had nothing really going. It’s us and New Britain, every time we play it’s 2-1, 3-1. Pillow fights.

“It’s always going to be a pitchers duel. They always play good defense, you don’t give them a lot of free stuff. It always seems we play them after we score e a lot of runs.”

The Bees, who matched Nashua’s six hits, had been buzzing on the basepaths thanks to the freebies, but left nine on base in the first six innings (a whopping 12 overall). Nashua was up 1-0 courtesy of some small ball that led to a Phoenix Williams RBI single in the third.

But the Bees stung in the eighth,

One walk Nashua issued came courtesy of a pitch clock violation by Knights pitcher Sachin Gopal after a tough error by Peter Kolbinsky and a double by NB’s Ben Kuja put runners at second and third with no one out. With the count 2-2 on pinch-hitter James Fagnant, Gopal was called for the violation, which made it 3-2. Rattled, the next pitch was ball four. There are no clocks in FCBL stadiums, the clocks, as they are in the NCAA, are kept by the umps.

“So stupid,” Guarino said, referring to the need for the call. “It’s a tough time to do it, especially when there’s no clock on the field. We’re going to talk about that with the league. I’m going to bring it up at the manager’s meeting, they’ve got to stop doing it. Norwich lost a game like that last week.”

It loaded the bases and the tying run came in on a double play. In the ninth, though, a single and short hop error on Knights second baseman A.J. Kolb – he tried to catch it in the air rather than play back – put two on with nobody out. Brandon Metivier came in but issued two more walks that gave the Bees a 2-1 lead. Kuja added a sac fly to make it 3-1.

It would have been nice or the Silver Knights to get their longest win streak of the year, three, but Guarino wanted at least two-out-of three on a weekend, likening it to a three-game series even though each night was a different opponent.

“Win the series with a three-game weekend,” he said. “We won two out of three, I’m happy winning two of three, we’re back to where we kind of want to be now. We’re one under .500, but we’re kind of hitting stride now, into a groove.”

Except the mound control fell out of that groove.

“It’s one of those things when as the game goes on and you’re up 1-0, you kind of know they’re eventually going to break through. You’ve got try to tack on and tack on, and we never did.”

But the bottom line? “Too many walks,” Guarino said. “Can’t walk guys.”

THE WEEK AHEAD

The Knights have another morning game, 10:35 at Westfield today, and then have their only home game Tuesday at 6:03 p.m. vs. the Lowell Spinners. After an off-day Wednesday, they are at Westfield on Thursday evening before back-to-back nights at Worcester.

They are then off next Sunday before they are finally home again a week from tonight vs.Westfield…

Malcolm Klingler, a 6-2, 210-pound righty from Hopkinton who will be a freshman at Northeastern in the fall, is the probable starter today at the Starfires.