Vancouver took the Northwest League championship last week and Lansing went down in their series Thursday. Now, New Hampshire finds itself poised for the Midwest League title with just 27 outs to go.
New
Hampshire 5 Richmond 3 (New Hampshire
leads series 2-1) Fisher Cats bats were muted by Flying Squirrels starter Jason Stevenson for 5.2 innings
as New Hampshire was able to get only one ball out of the infield on a fly out
by Jonathan Diaz in the 3rd. The tide started to turn against Richmond in
the 5th when they loaded the bases with one out, but were shut down
by a Jonathan Diaz initiated double
play to Tolisano and McDade to take the Fisher Cats out of a dangerous bases-loaded
spot. In the
fifth inning, Stevenson customarily took out two more New Hampshire batters on
an infield pop up by Yan Gomes and a
strike out by John Talisano. Then Diaz made way for a unleashing of 5 runs
in the inning with a two-out wak. Diaz advanced
to third on Anthony Gose’s single Kevin
Howard’s walk and a wild pitch scored Diaz to begin the nights scoring and
moved Gose to third. Gose Scores on
another wild pitch. With Moises Sierra
batting, Howard steals third. Sierra doubles in Howard. Travis d’Arnaude doubles scoring Sierra. Whew! Despite
a pitching change, New Hampshire wasn’t done with the sixth. Man Mountain Mike McDade smacked an RBI single scoring d’Arnaud, still with two
out. Dany Perales was the 9th batter of the inning and he
flew out to left field. With a near
perfect 6 innings, Stevens got stuck with 5 runs as the Fisher Cats came alive
at the plate. The
Flying Squirrels managed 2 more runs, one in the bottom of the six and the
bottom of the 8th, but it wasn’t enough to catch New Hampshire who was
outhit 11 to 6. Wes Etheredge took the win and Bobby
Korecky earned the save by shutting down the Flying Squirrels in the 9th. New
Hampshire has only 27 outs between them and the Eastern League Championship and
it could be settled Saturday evening with a New Hampshire win or the series may
go to five games with a contest slated for Sunday if necessary. That
wraps my involvement in the MLU for Fridays in 2011. It has been my high honor and distinct
pleaser to write Friday night reports in what has been an exciting 2011 season
for Toronto’s farm clubs. Thank you all for looking at Da Box. Three
Stars! Moises
Sierra 1 for 4, Double, RBI Travis
d’Arnaud 1 for 4, Double, RBI
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20110917093057172