Deck McGuire and Logan Verrett in: The Battle of Who Could Suck Less
The B-Mets made their second trip of the season to New Hampshire, this time in sole posession of first place in their division. Their dominance would be short-lived as they would find themselves in a three-way tie for first after falling 8-7 to the Fisher Cats.
Darrell Ceciliani puts runners in scoring position in Binghamton’s 5-run 2nd inning
When last we saw Deck McGuire, he gave up five runs in 1/3 of an inning and got an early hook at the start of an 11-4 B-Mets rout. This time around, McGuire waited until the second inning to give up five runs. In an inning when anything hit in play would go down as a hit, McGuire’s only way out was an inning-ending strikeout.
Vaughn and Ceciliani preparing to begin today’s scoring
I put down my camera to get out a tweet about the first run and several more came through before I could get through 140 characters. McGuire looked lost, the Fisher Cats looked inept, and the Mets looked unstoppable.
One of my few pictures of Logan Verrett without a runner on first in the background
Things started turning around in the next inning. The entire Mets infield got caught napping on a leadoff base hit up the middle, but no damage was done. The scene repeated itself in the 4th with not one but two infielders trying, and failing, to corral a hard-hit ground ball, with shortstop Wilfredo Tovar in the middle of both plays. He made no effort to go after a ball that rolled to his left in the 3rd and in the 4th he got in front of a ball to his right that got past a diving Josh Rodriguez, but was unable to hold on to it. To his credit, Tovar started a slick double play in the 3rd, but the bobble in the 4th was costly. That runner would score and one more run would come through with two outs.
The Mets’ lead would be cut to 5-4 in the 5th after a double and a home run with two outs. Trying to get some breathing room, the Mets went for a bunt to lead off the 6th. That was the only Mets batter to leave the batter’s box in the inning. With Verrett getting hit hard, you would have to think that the bullpen would be coming into play soon. You would be wrong.
Verrett came out to start the 6th and put the first two batters on base. Verrett then fielded a soft bunt and didn’t even attempt to make a throw, seeming to realize that, with his luck tonight, any throw he made would probably end up in the outfield and three runs would score. Instead, he took his chances with former Mets farmhand Adam Loewen, who decided to give the ball the rest of the night off in the Sam Adams Bar and Grill on the other side of the left field wall. With that, the Fisher Cats took an 8-5 lead and Logan Verrett made his exit. One pitch from Ryan Fraser turned into one out and the Fisher Cats went down easy from that point on.
The Mets struck back in the top of the 7th with back-to-back line drives to shallow center to lead off the inning. Right into the glove of a charging Kevin Pillar. Both times. Fraser gave up one hit in the bottom half but got through the inning without incident and turned things over to Jack Leathersich.
This is what a Jack Leathersich strikeout looks like
Leathersich struck out the side in the 8th, much to the amazement of anyone who had never heard of Jack Leathersich. To anyone else, it was business as usual.
Productive outs, but not productive enough
Down to their last three outs, it was time for the B-Mets to work their late-inning magic and salvage this game. Darrell Ceciliani started the inning off with a base hit and scored on Blake Forsythe’s double. Forsythe advanced to third on a groundout by Richard Lucas and scored on a Wilfredo Tovar groundout. That left the Mets down by one run with two outs and Daniel Muno at the plate. One groundout later and it was time to see some fireworks before our feature presentation, Escape From Manchester (runtime 40 minutes, rated !*@$#& for people in minivans almost crashing into you as you try to get a few inches closer to the exit). Mets lose 8-7.
This is what a Cesar Puello strikeout looks like
Notes: Cesar Puello went 0-4 with three strikeouts. The first four batters in the B-Mets lineup went 1 for 14 with six strikeouts and two walks. The bottom four in the order went 6 for 16 with two strikeouts and six RBIs.
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