This one’s gonna sting
Coming off a shutout loss here the night before, the Binghamton Mets were looking to even the series behind Hansel Robles, who pitched five shutout innings here last month. The Binghamton offense would need to produce more than ground balls to make that happen though. Robles had everything working for the first couple of innings and the offense came back to life for a few more, but it didn’t add up to a win as the Fisher Cats took this one 6-4 with Kevin Plawecki getting the final word (which is best not said in polite company).
Hansel Robles was leaning on his fastball early and was holding steady at 92mph for the first two innings, touching 93. Robles started getting into trouble when he lost velocity on his fastball. At only 90mph, it just wasn’t enough to keep the Fisher Cats offense in check, resulting in a flurry of ground balls.
Round and round they go…
Wilfredo Tovar was able to get to three of them, but four ground balls plus a line drive and a fly ball made it into the outfield for hits before Robles was pulled in the 6th. The final straw was a grounder that shot into the Binghamton bullpen where Cory Vaughn, playing in left field for a change, had trouble getting to it. Cody Satterwhite was warming up at the time and entered the game to face the next batter. His first order of business though was to pick off the runner Robles left behind.
Robles only gave up one run in the 6th, but it was enough to earn him the loss after Jayce Boyd had just tied the game in the top half for the final Binghamton run (Boyd’s HR was followed by six ground outs as the bats went cold). The B-Mets offense got off to a shaky start, stranding four runners in the first two innings, but they scored four runs for Robles on home runs by Matt Clark and Jayce Boyd and a Wilfredo Tovar line drive. Boyd went 4-for-4 on the night with a home run and two doubles (one aided by the setting sun) while Tovar went 2-for-3 with a walk. Boyd had the stat line night (just a triple shy of the cycle with two runs scored), while Tovar impressed at the plate, on the basepaths, and in the field.
For his effort though, Tovar would not make it past third base, getting stranded there twice and watching the end of the game at second base after walking on a full count to lead off the 9th and advancing on a ground out that might have been a double play if he hadn’t been running on the pitch. Kevin Plawecki came up with two outs representing the tying run. We’ve seen this one before. Plawecki drew a full count before taking a pitch and preparing to take his base. The umpire had other ideas though and Plawecki had words with him before walking back to the losing dugout in an exact repeat of the game two years ago. This time though, the dugout was silent except for a single exclamation as Plawecki packed up his gear.
Those who do not learn from history…
Final score: New Hampshire 6, Binghamton 4
Comments are closed.