20 innings or bust! Fine, bust it is…
Brian Burgamy breaks a bat grounding out
Three hit batters, two broken bats, two blown leads… So much was busted for the B-Mets on Sunday that everyone was going to need a day off after this 14-inning marathon. What’s that, they had a doubleheader on Monday? No rest for the winners, I guess. The B-Mets salvaged a win after blowing a 7-run lead and making the kids wait until after 6pm to run the bases, sweeping the Fisher Cats in their final trip to New Hampshire in 2014.
Tyler Pill was coming off two losses in Manchester and the B-Mets were coming off two narrow victories in which they held comfortable leads, so I had low expectations for Sunday’s game. In a surprise twist, Pill pitched effectively, going five scoreless innings before giving up two runs in the 6th and getting pulled after recording two outs. His stuff wasn’t overpowering, topping off at about 89mph, but it was the slow stuff in the high-70s that was keeping the Fisher Cats at bay. When Pill went with mostly high-80s fastballs in the 6th, the Fisher Cats pounced on him and got on the board. T.J. Chism came in and got the B-Mets out of the inning without further damage.
Kevin Plawecki drives in a run in the 3rd inning
The B-Mets offense did enough damage of their own early in the game to make those two runs largely insignificant. Cory Vaughn followed up his double on Saturday with another double his first time up on Sunday. He would come around to score on a Wilfredo Tovar single. The next run came an inning later on a Matt Reynolds triple and a Kevin Plawecki single. Jayce Boyd singled to put runners at the corners for Cory Vaughn.
Cory Vaughn hits a sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning
This time, Vaughn flying out was productive, driving in a run as a sac fly. That would be it for Vaughn’s offense for the foreseeable future; he would finish the night 1-for-5 with a sac fly and a HBP before going 0-for-7 with a walk over his next two games. That streak of two doubles over the weekend was it for Vaughn’s hot streak and his trouble at the plate in 2014 continues.
Darrell Ceciliani begins a home run swing
Darrell Ceciliani followed Vaughn’s sac fly with the game’s only home run. The Mets scored two more runs over the next three innings, putting them up 7-0 before Pill started having trouble. Trouble was also getting started with Wilfredo Tovar.
Wilfredo Tovar fouls one off himself and doubles over in pain
We’ve seen a lot of Mets taking a beating over the course of this series. Kevin Plawecki took two pitches and a foul ball on Friday, then Matt Clark left Saturday’s game after being hit by a pitch. Sunday was Tovar’s day, which started when he fouled one off himself in the top of the 7th. Tovar has been getting a bit frustrated at the plate lately and this certainly didn’t help. But this was just the beginning.
T.J. Chism runs into trouble in the 7th inning
The rest of the team felt the pain in the bottom half when T.J. Chism started things off with three consecutive hits to left field. With the pressure on, Chism walked the next batter to bring up Ryan Schimpf, who was so feared on Saturday that he was given an intentional walk. That wasn’t an option with the bases loaded, so he had to settle for a hit by pitch. After allowing the first five batters of the inning to reach base without recording an out, that was it for Chism. He would go on the disabled list the next day, so something was clearly wrong.
Jon Velasquez was handed the unenviable task of getting three outs with three runners already on base. Those runners wouldn’t be a problem for long. Velasquez gave up a double that cleared the bases to the first batter he saw but settled in and got through the inning, wrapping things up on a 95mph fastball with runners on second and third.
The B-Mets would get their lead back in the top of the 8th, but it was short-lived. Jack Leathersich gave the run back in the bottom half but kept the game tied until the end of the 9th.
Chase Bradford and Adam Kolarek would each pitch two scoreless innings to give the B-Mets another four chances to score a run.
Oh, for the love of god, enough with the bunting!
Which they tried to do by bunting. For three straight innings, the Mets bunted when they got a runner on base (twice that was by HBP). In the 10th and the 11th, we got the scene above: out at second, just barely safe at first. We’re in extra innings and the Mets are giving away outs. Things went differently in the 12th, for better and worse.
Wilfredo Tovar leaves the game in the 12th inning after being hit by a pitch
Wilfredo Tovar started things off by getting hit by a pitch that had him on the ground in pain. He would leave the game after being helped off the field but would be back in the lineup on Monday. With Dustin Lawley running for Tovar, Kyle Johnson got a sacrifice bunt down successfully and moved Lawley to second. Lawley took third on a ground out, but he would be stranded 90 feet from home. The Fisher Cats answered back in the bottom half with speedy pinch hitter Kenny Wilson walking, stealing second, and stealing third with one out. Wilson wouldn’t make it any closer to scoring than Lawley had. Both teams would then strand runners on second in the 13th as this game looked like it would never end.
Matt Reynolds singles to drive in Kyle Johnson for the winning run
Kyle Johnson wouldn’t be bunting when he came up with the bases empty in the top of the 14th. Instead, he hit a double. A single from Brian Burgamy moved him to third and another single from Matt Reynolds brought him home for the first run in six innings. That would be it, leaving it up to a depleted bullpen with only Saturday’s relievers left unused.
John Church would get a one-run Binghamton lead in the bottom of the 14th, leaving only Cody Satterwhite in the bullpen. Church got things started with a pair of strikeouts and then got an easy ground ball to end the game and finally let the kids, if there were any left in the stadium, run the bases.
The 42nd out…
Final Score: Bingamton 9, New Hampshire 8
That’s it for the B-Mets at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in 2014. See you next year…
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