Syracuse Mets 4, Toledo Mud Hens 3 (box)
Toledo led for eight innings, but a ninth-inning collapse allowed the Syracuse Mets to walk off the Mud Hens, 4-3.
After tons of offense yesterday, we got an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel through five in Syracuse. Carlos Pena looked sharp in his first start of the year, giving Toledo five shutout innings. Pena was with Erie, but he got called up to help Toledo’s staff get through the week. He struck out three while allowing four hits and three walks. Analytics-wise, Pena didn’t do anything special.
Mostly sinker and changeup, with a couple of hard-hit balls to gloves.
Carl Edwards Jr. almost matched him, going five innings for the Mets. He gave up a run in the first inning after allowing a leadoff double from Ben Malgeri and a single from Max Clark. Trei Cruz walked to load the bases, but Jace Jung grounded into a double play to make it just a one-run inning. Eduardo Valencia almost went deep, but it died at the warning track in left field.
Gage Workman led off the second with a single, but that was Toledo’s last base hit until the sixth. Clark hit his sixth double of the year and scored on a sacrifice fly from Jung. Malgeri scored in the sixth as well, on a throwing error from Jonathan Pintaro, who started the inning in relief of Edwards. Pintaro snagged a comebacker, but his throw to third was wide.
Sean Guenther was first out of the bullpen for Toledo. Cruz couldn’t handle a funny hop, and the leadoff error spiraled. Three singles later, two runs crossed, both unearned. A baserunning miscue on the third single from Syracuse helped kill the inning. Things could have been much worse, but Toledo left the inning with a 3-2 lead.
Drew Sommers got the seventh for the Mud Hens. He struck out the side, working around a one-out bunt single. Sommers came back out for the eighth, retiring both batters he faced, including another strikeout. Good, but he’s going to have to do it consistently to get back to Detroit.
Cole Waites got the final out of the eighth for Toledo, but he couldn’t close out the win. Ji Hwan Bae led off the bottom of the ninth with a double. Waites got two out and took Syracuse down to its last strike, but Jackson Cluff delivered a walk-off home run. *fart noises*
Clark: 2-4, 2B (6), R
Cruz: 0-2, 2 BB, K
Jung: 0-3, RBI, SF, K
Pena: 5.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K
Coming Up Next: Toledo celebrates its home opener on Tuesday at 4:05 p.m. ET, kicking off a series with the St. Paul Saints.
Richmond Flying Squirrels 11, Erie SeaWolves 9 (box)
Erie and Richmond went back and forth all day, but the Flying Squirrels got the last laugh, scoring the winning runs in the ninth.
Dariel Fregio looked really good in the first, retiring the side in order. He ran into some trouble in the second, but John Peck bailed him out with a nice play at shortstop to save a run and get the second out of the inning. Unfortunately, Peck made an error with two outs in the third that kept the inning going. All four runs that scored are unearned because Fregio should have gotten out of it with the ground ball. He didn’t get out of the third, and Sean Hunley took over to finish it.
Erie got two back in the bottom half of the third. Justice Bigbie led off with a soft tapper to the right side of the infield grass. Joe Campagna singled up the middle, and Bennett Lee got hit by a pitch to load the bases. Brett Callhan lined into a double play at shortstop. The ball left Callahan’s bat at 100 mph, but it went to the worst possible spot. Peyton Graham walked to reload the bases, and John Peck singled in the first run. Andrew Jenkins walked to score another. Chris Meyers struck out to strand the bags full. It would have been nice to tie it up there.
Hunley faced the minimum in the fourth. Campagna made an error at second, but Lee erased it with a good throw down to get the runner. The SeaWolves put another crooked number up in the bottom half. E.J. Exposito walked, and Bigbie got a real single this time around. Lee hit a sac fly to get Exposito in, and then Callahan hit a home run to give Erie a 5-4 lead.
Johan Simon took over for Hunley in the fifth. He gave up the lead on a two-run homer. The see-saw continued to go back and forth in the bottom half, with Exposito hitting a two-run shot. Things settled down after that. Luke Taggart was really good, striking out all four batters he faced.
Richmond walked in a run in the seventh, making it 8-6 in favor of Erie. Luke Stofel immediately gave up that lead in the eighth. The Flying Squirrels got to him for a pair of hits before recording an out, and then some small ball set up a two-run single from Dayson Croes.
Erie fought back in the bottom of the eighth, tying the game up on a sacrifice fly from Jenkins, but Trevin Michael blew it in the ninth. Michael gave up a leadoff double and hit two batters, the second with the bases loaded. Another single made it 11-9, and that’s where things ended. Four errors and eight free passes are always going to make it hard to win. Tough way to lose a series.
Jenkins: 2-3, 2B (1), R, 2 RBI, BB, K
Callahan: 2-6, HR (2), 2 R, 2 RBI, 2 K
Exposito: 2-4, HR (1), 2 R, 2 RBI, BB, K
Bigbie: 3-5, 2 R, K
Coming Up Next: Erie is back in action on Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. ET on the road against the Chesapeake Baysox.
Lakeland Flying Tigers 13, Tampa Tarpons 6 (box)
For a third straight game, the Lakeland Flying Tigers put up at least a dozen runs, completing the sweep over the Tampa Tarpons with a 13-6 win. The Flygers scored 38 runs over the first three games of their season.
Interestingly enough, Lakeland only scored in three innings tonight. Zach MacDonald and Nolan McCarthy both doubled in the second, with the latter driving in the former. McCarthy came in on a fielder’s choice, giving the Flying Tigers a 2-0 lead, but Tampa had a swift response.
The Tarpons reached on a wild-pitch dropped third strike and Willy Montero homered to tie the game up. JoJo Jackson and Hans Montero both singled to give Tampa the lead. Bryce Martin-Grudzielank drove in Engelth Urena for an insurance run, but the Tarpons didn’t hold that 4-2 lead for too long.
Lakeland put up four in the fifth. McCarthy led off with his second double of the day, stole third and scored on a throwing error by the catcher. The other three runs in the inning came with two outs. Jude Warwick scored on a Beau Ankeney single to tie the game four runs apiece. Javier Osorio doubled in Ankeney and Jack Goodman.
The other seven runs scored by the Flying Tigers came in the sixth. Six straight batters reached base without recording an out. The sequence leading up to that went: walk, single, hit by pitch, single, single, single. Osorio struck out, and then Zach MacDonald crushed a three-run homer that came off the bat at 114.2 mph, which is pretty staggering exit velocity for the relatively unheralded center fielder. It’s not worth writing out more than that, but this team can sure hit.
Tampa scored two runs in the seventh to cut the deficit to seven… rough week for that pitching staff.
Caleb Leys made his professional debut on the mound, going four innings for Lakeland. He gave up four runs on three hits and two walks, while striking out six batters. Pretty good stuff from Leys. His fastball averaged 92.5 mph and drew four whiffs. He landed another seven called strikes with it.
Alistair Tanner looked good in relief. He went 3 2/3 innings, giving up just two runs (one earned) on two hits and a walk. His fastball looked good, averaging 95.7 in his first inning of work. He lost some steam as the innings went on, and had some short bouts of wildness but he maintained 2,490 rpm all day and averaged 20 inches of induced vertical break, which is a lot. Something to keep an eye on, for sure.
Andrew Pogue closed out the final 1 1/3 innings. He threw all sinkers and gave up two hits but no runs.
MacDonald: 2-5, 2B (2), HR (1), 2 R, 3 RBI, K
McCarthy: 2-2, 2 2B (2), 3 R, RBI, 3 BB
Lee: 1-3
Leys: 4.0 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, HR
Tanner (W, 1-0): 3.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, ER, BB, 3 K
Coming Up Next: Lakeland is at home on Tuesday vs. Daytona at 6:30 p.m. ET.
