Fastball is not The Way
It was a wet and wild night in Manchester as passing storms threatening to delay the start gave way to late-inning walks that threatened to chip away at Binghamton’s commanding lead. Gabriel Ynoa barely made it through six innings before auditions for bullpen September call-ups began. The B-Mets offense, now bolstered by journeymen who began the year in independent league ball, never stopped working and delivered a 9-5 victory that in a far closer game than the final score would seem to indicate.
The last time I saw Gabriel Ynoa, the weather was freezing and Ynoa wasn’t all that hot himself. This time around, it was a different extreme as Ynoa took the mound in a light drizzle on a hot day. He cruised through the first three innings, allowing baserunners on just a double and a throwing error by shortstop T.J. Rivera (Gavin Cecchini had the night off). With his fastball sitting 90-92, everything seemed to be working.
And that’s when everything started going wrong. Ynoa was hitting 94 by the end of the 3rd and started having trouble finding the strike zone. He settled into 92-93, touching 94, for the rest of the night and continued to struggle. Just about every fastball he threw was a ball or a meatball. New Hampshire struck back in the 4th with three hits and a sac fly to score two runs. After loading the bases with two outs in the 5th and coming away clean, Ynoa wasn’t so lucky in the 6th. A walk and two singles with two outs added another run for the Fisher Cats and had Jeff Walters rushing to get warmed up in time to enter the game if Ynoa couldn’t get the next batter out. Ynoa escaped without further damage, leaving Walters to enter in the 7th.
Luckily though, the bullpen would take over with a six run lead. The B-Mets offense was scoring early and often, putting up runs in five of the first seven innings. They could have had even more if not for a few key baserunning blunders. Binghamton came away empty in the second despite hitting two singles and a double. First Jared King somehow was both picked off and caught stealing on the same play, getting stuck in a rundown on the softest pickoff toss I’ve ever seen. Gilbert Gomez then doubled (doh!), but he made the third out at the plate when he tried to score on a single (double doh!).
Jonathan Galvez home run
Brock Peterson’s stand-up triple looked like it would be the big hit of the game (he would be stranded there…), but Jonathan Galvez did one better with this solo shot in the 4th. After Peterson stranded the bases loaded in the 6th, the B-Mets would add three more runs in the 7th, capped by a Gilbert Gomez 2-RBI single. That he tried to stretch into a double, without success (triple doh!). It kept the throw from going to the plate at least. Binghamton’s bats went to sleep at that point, no doubt resting up for the 23 innings of work they would have in 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday.
Jeff Walters pitches a 1-2-3 7th
Jeff Walters took over in the bottom half of the 7th, continuing his rehab from Tommy John surgery. He only needed 13 pitches to retire the side, but the stadium gun was down so I don’t know how hard he was throwing.
Akeel Morris pitches a scoreless 8th
You didn’t need a radar gun to know that Akeel Morris was throwing the heat; the sound of the ball hitting the catcher’s mitt was more than enough. Unfortunately, Morris had the same problem as Ynoa and had trouble finding the strike zone. After walking two, he escaped on a swinging strikeout to preserve the 6-run lead.
Josh Smoker pitches a 9th
And that brings us to Josh Smoker. The stadium gun came back to life in the top of the inning when the Fisher Cats pitcher was hitting 97+. Smoker hit 95 with his first pitch and kept his fastball at 95-96. Two walks and a 2-out, 2-RBI double later, it was clear that fastballs just weren’t working tonight. Smoker fell back to offspeed pitches to end the game with a fly ball to left.
Final score: Binghamton 9, New Hampshire 5.
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