Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Then We Came to the End

Sunday marked the end of the regular season for some while others have to work on Monday as well. In any event, it was all pretty boring stuff. But Ricky Romero continued his rejuvenation.

Scranton 2 Syracuse 3 (Game 1)

Ricky Romero's final start of 2008 was a successful one as the suddenly-emerging lefty went the distance in the seven inning affair. Romero allowed two runs on eight hits and walked a pair. He also struck out five. Romero acquitted himself nicely in AAA going 3-3 in 7 starts with an ERA of 3.38. In 42 innings he allowed 42 hits and struck out 38 while walking 20. Not elite stuff, but more than I'd expected, anyway.

Russ Adams had a two run homer, his fifteenth, and Curtis Thigpen drove in the other run. Man, looking at Syracuse boxscores is so much more boring without Travis Snider around.

Syracuse 2 Scranton 3 (Game 2)

Five hits for the Chiefs in this one. Kevin Melillo hit a two-run homer. Four other guys managed a single each. You probably don't care who they were.

Michael MacDonald started this one and went two allowing three hits and three unearned runs. Jonah Bayliss and Mike Gosling each pitched two scoreless innings in relief.

New Hampshire 5 Portland 4

New Hampshire made the most of their five hits scoring five times to hold off Portland. Ryan Patterson had two singles while Scott Campbell, playing third, went 1-for-5 with a walk.

Brandon Magee's season finishes on a high-note as he went seven, allowing two runs on six hits and a walk to go along with four strikeouts. Magee finishes up at 7-13, which is pretty remarkable considering he was 1-10 at the end of June. Maybe he'll get the Most Improved Player award, which was always a slap in the face when you were a kid.

Daryl Harang almost let this one get away in the bottom of the ninth. Luckilly, Orlando Roman was able to shut the door, else the Fisher Cats would have moved to 27 games out, with one to play.

Dunedin 3 Sarasota 0

The D-Jays look pretty strong heading into their playoff series with Fort Myers. Anthony Hatch had four hits, including two doubles, while David Corrente chipped in with two hits of his own. Corrente has an OBP of 257 and is slugging 514 in 72 AB for the D-Jays. Pretty wacky stuff.

Ryan Page picked up the win with five innings of shutout ball. Kyle Ginley returned to the mound for the first time in a month with an inning of scoreless relief.

Lansing 4 South Bend 2

Kevin Ahrens and Moises Sierra each had two hits as the Lugnuts limp into the end of the season. These guys are gassed. Raul Barron supplied two of the RBI while Jonathan Jaspe and C.J. Ebarb had the others.

Ryan Koch started, and went four, allowing two runs on two hits and striking out five. He didn't last long enough for the victory, though. That went to Frank Gailey, who moved to 5-0 with an ERA of 1.26 in 20 games for the Lugnuts.

State College 0 Auburn 3

Brian Van Kirk had a two-run triple to supply virtually all of the offense in this one. Seriously, check it out for yourself. The rest isn't worth mentioning.

Josh Wells started and went five shutout frames on three hits and a walk. Jared Potts picked him up with three scoreless of his own to grab the victory.

Three Stars:

3rd Star: Russ Adams- 2 run HR

2nd Star: Anthony Hatch - 4-for-5, 2 2B

1st Star: Ricky Romero- 7 IP (CG), 8 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5K

Posted by braden on Monday, September 01 2008 @ 09:34 AM EDT.

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Kelekin - Monday, September 01 2008 @ 01:19 PM EDT (#191666) #

Good last two months of the season for Romero.

It's also nice to see Farina back for those last couple games. And Bell finishes his season without allowing a walk. Beautiful.

StephenT - Monday, September 01 2008 @ 10:58 PM EDT (#191692) #

The Rapidz played their last game of the season in sunny Ottawa today. The lineups for tickets were longer than usual (I should have bought mine earlier online). The concession lines were longer than usual also, and some of the less-used outlets in past games were closed this busy day. (After the game, there was an apology for the long concession lines, with a statement that they lost 70% of their students back to college.) The two vending machines were "out of order", so you couldn't get a non-alcoholic drink without lining up (and then it turned out the concessions were out of water bottles, though there were other drinks).

Still, the crowd maintained its enthusiasm, not just during the game, but especially between innings as free t-shirts, caps, candy, etc. was thrown out to the fans. They announced that the attendance of 5021 was their highest of the season.

The Rapidz led early, but lost the game 8-3. One unusual play started with a great running catch by the center-fielder Lemieux going back to the wall for the 2nd out of the inning, but he seemed to forget that there were runners on 1st and 2nd, and the lead runner managed to tag and score all the way from 2nd-base, while the runner on 1st-base did not advance.

Later that inning, the fans heavily booed the Worcester player Farkes when he came up to bat, who earlier in the game had knocked over the Rapidz catcher at the plate to score a run. Farkes swung and missed at the first two pitches, to the delight of the fans, then hit a liner to the 3rd-baseman, for what should have been the 3rd out, but the Rapidz fielder let the ball go through him. Ironically Farkes was later thrown out at the plate to end the inning, when he did just slide instead of body-check.

After the game, everyone was allowed onto the field (though limited numbers at a time) for kids to run the bases and anyone to get player autographs. They said the players would stay as long as anyone was still lined up, and there were still long lines to get onto the field when I left.

There were advertisements for ticket packages for 2009, implying that the team expects to return next year.

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