New Hampshire hadn't scored a run since last Friday but on Thursday they scored five with 13 hits and won with a walk off. Streak ends! Buffalo picked up another win against the Mets. Vancouver and Dunedin lost. Connor O'Halloran will be having nightmares about his start for the C's.
The FCL season ended on Thursday. It was a tough season for the Jays and there are few players worth talking about.
Syracuse 4 Buffalo 6
Reading 4 New Hampshire 5
Vancouver 4 Hillsboro 13
Fort Myers 6 Dunedin 2
FCL Phillies 8 FCL Blue Jays 4
Three Stars
Third Star - Rafael Lantigua
Second Star - Ryan McCarty
First Star - Garrett Spain
NOTES
Rafael Lantigua had a very good season in 2023 but 2024 hasn't been as good. He had a nice game on Thursday going 3-4 with a run scored and an RBI. Miguel Hiraldo also had a 3-4 game. Damiano Palmegiani singled in two runs.
Paolo Espino started and went four innings, one run allowed. Eric Pardinho followed and immediately surrendered a home run. A walk, a triple and a sac fly meant the Mets had scored three off him. He went back out for the sixth inning and had a 3 up, 3 down inning.
New Hampshire went down 3-0 in the second inning and it looked like another loss was on the cards. But Andres Sosa tripled to score Ryan McCarty and he scored on a wild pitch to make it a 3-2 game. In a 4-2 game in the seventh Alex De Jesus singled in the third run and McCarty doubled to tie the game. The tie remained until the bottom of the ninth. With two outs Cade Doughty singled, Kekai Rios walked and Garrett Spain singled in the walk off winning run. The streak was over.
McCarty went 3-5. Gabriel Martinez, Rainer Nunez, Doughty and Sosa all had two hits. NH had 13 in the game.
Devereaux Harrison went six innings and gave up four runs on six hits. He didn't walk anyone and struck out four.
Connor O'Halloran had a disastrous start for Vancouver. In the first inning two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases. A double and a home run made it a five run inning. The second inning wasn't much better, a three run home run made it eight runs allowed over two innings. He came back out for the third and walked the bases loaded. That was it as he was done. But Rafael Ohashi let all three walks to score leaving O'Halloran with eleven runs charged to him.
Dasan Brown homered, walked and reached on catchers interference. Nick Goodwin and Jace Bohrofen doubled.
Two runs in the ninth inning made a 6-0 game a little more respectable for the D Jays. Four errors by the Jays led to three unearned runs. Grant Rogers did OK, he went 5.2 innings and gave up two runs, one earned.
Six hits for the Jays, Yhoangel Aponte had two. Arjun Nimmala was 0-3. He was hot earlier in the month but now is two for his last 26 with 15 K's. He is still younger than some high school players drafted last week but he needs to find what was working for him earlier in the month.
The FCL season ended on Thursday, the Jays finished with a record of twelve wins and 44 losses. Not only was the team record bad, most of the players had bad stats too. With an age range of 18 to 21 there is still time for improvement but there are doubts over the future of Enmanuel Bonilla who finished with an OPS of .556. The best hitter on the team was 19 year old Kendry Chirinos who hit .300 with an OPS of .845. He was way ahead of the second best hitter, by OPS, Sam Shaw at .665.
There were no standouts among the pitchers but pitchers have unpredictable paths. One of them could step up next season but I don't see any of the FCL pitchers making it to a top 30 list.
