Black and the Squirrels were watching The Bus’ arrival by bus and his first pitch. Black is from Pennsylvania, went to the University of Pittsburgh and is a Steelers fan.

Bettis’ pitch was high and outside, but he easily got it to the plate on the fly.

“I’ve been saying for the last couple of months that I was going to throw some high heat,” Bettis said. “The whole idea was I didn’t just want to throw one down the pipe and let somebody knock it out. Somebody is going to have to chase one out of the zone. That was my idea. I think I executed the pitch pretty good. … I would have wanted it a little bit more over the plate.

“It was maybe a little bit outside. It was definitely high, though, which is what I liked.”

“By a little bit, you mean 3 feet,” said Todd “Parney” Parnell, the Squirrels’ vice president and COO and a good friend of Bettis.

Cole gave the Squirrels just enough of a lead with a timely hit in the eighth. Myles Schroder led off with a single and went to second on an errant pickoff throw.

Christian Arroyo’s infield single put runners on the corners, but lefty Josh Smith struck out Austin Slater and Ricky Oropesa.