Last night, I was seconds away from going with "At press time, the score of this game was..." but Dunedin finally finished it up after three hours and 13 minutes down in Sarasota. Two wins for the affiliates last night (Lansing had the night off), including a fun ending in Syracuse that inspired the weak pun in the headline.
Pawtucket 6 @ Syracuse 7 (11) - Syracuse Post-Standard game story
Pawtucket took the lead in the top of the 11th. Real Canadian Hero Adam Stern was 0-for-5, but scored on a Ron Calloway single in the eleventh. Lee Gronkiewicz was the unlucky guy who gave up the sixth run.
Chad Mottola came up in the bottom of the eighth with one run already in, the Chiefs down by two and two runners in scoring position. He came through with a double to left that tied it at 5, and it would stay that way until the Calloway single mentioned earlier. That single gave me some relief, as I thought the game was over; I don't really care if the SkyChiefs win, to be honest. But John-Ford Griffin had something to say about that: JFG homered in the bottom of the 11th and it was tied again.
And then, the real fun started: walk, wild pitch, single to left...Wayne Lydon racing around third...he scores! Game over, and it was certainly a good move by Syracuse to remove Ali G for the pinch-runner Lydon. Brian Tallet gets a very easy win -- all he did was strike out Hee Seop Choi on five pitches.
Anyway, the PawSox put four runs on the board through three – a few paragraphs from now, that will sound familiar. Josh Banks surrendered a three-run shot to Jeff Bailey, but those runs were all unearned. (You'll notice that in the AA game, too.) Banks settled down for a bit, getting more ground balls but gave up another in the third and was replaced in the top of the sixth after back-to-back singles and 92 pitches. 62 of them were strikes, but he had no strikeouts. To me, that indicates he wasn't fooling anyone, and the fact that he only had one three-up, three down inning supports that observation.
One note not related to the outcome of the game: Ryan Roberts made his fifth error of the season, after what was supposedly a good defensive season for him in New Hampshire. I haven't actually seen him play yet, so I don't know firsthand how good he is with the glove – are these early-season results simply early-season results, or has he slipped out there?
Bowie 8 @ New Hampshire 4 - Union-Leader game story
Every batter, one-through-six in the Bowie lineup had at least two hits as New Hampshire fell behind 4-0 after the third. Kyle Yates gave up all 8 runs – three were unearned, but those three came on a homer by Jeff Fiorentino – and his night started off with single-single-single-double. Yates apparently didn't throw his best pitch, his curveball, often.
The Fisher Cats got three in the fourth, all involving Chip Cannon in some way; he tripled home two and scored on Eric Kratz's single. In case you're wondering (and I was), that's his first triple of the year. He had five in '05. Bowie struck out 10 F-Cats, nailing Vito Chiaravalloti for the golden sombrero.
Sarasota put up railroad tracks, scoring once in each of the first, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh. Bobby Ray, who I must admit I did not know was in Dunedin already, pitched well enough for his team to stay in the game -- I thought his two homers allowed were wind-aided, but only one of Ray's home runs allowed was to left field admist the "13 mph, Out to LF" wind.
And the Jays did stay in the game -- and then some -- leading 7-4 at the stretch. Eric Nielsen hit a solo homer in the second and reached base twice more on a pair of singles, scoring on Christian Snavely's bases-clearing double in the top of the sixth that put the D-Jays on top. Snavely scored again in the 8th on a Juan Peralta double.
The teams combined for 27 hits, one of which was by Ryan Patterson, who lowered his average to .292. I still somehow expect him to hit .370+ at every level, however unlikely it may be, but .292/.330/.491 is all right for now.
Three Star Selection:
3. John-Ford Griffin - Made up for misjudging a fly ball by homering to tie the game.
2. Christian Snavely - 3-run double and scored twice.
1. Wayne Lydon - Why not? He can run faster than Jason Phillips.
