Tag Archives: Dustin Lawley

The 2014 Binghamton Mets in GIFs

Posted by on 27 May 2014 Comments Off on The 2014 Binghamton Mets in GIFs

The Manchester experience in 16 moving pictures

Less than two months into the 2014 season, the B-Mets already have played their last regular season game of the year in Manchester, NH.  They leave New Hampshire with a 7-3 record at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium after shutouts, blown leads, big hits, occasional downpours, and a 14-inning finale.  Through all of it, the Binghamton roster has remained almost completely unchanged.  Only backup catchers changed places, with Blake Forsythe (on the DL for his entire 2014 B-Mets stint) dealt to Oakland and Nelfi Zapata (who did not appear in a game in Manchester) replacing Xorge Carrillo after the latter’s call-up to Las Vegas.  That’s effectively a stable 25-man roster to work with.

While I try to cover minor league games with as much useful information as possible, I have my limits.  When it comes to giving an illustrated first-hand account that goes beyond what the box score will tell you, I can at least fake competence.  But when people start asking about mechanics, I’ve got nothing.  I don’t like watching games from behind home plate and I can’t tell a curve from a slider.  I can juggle multiple electronic devices and capture photos and video while live-tweeting a game though.  So I added a video camera to my usual game pack and quickly realized that getting sharp video at night games just wasn’t happening.  Oh well.  What does it all add up to?  Damned if I know.

Let’s kick things off with Wilfredo Tovar enthusiastically grounding into a double play.  Is this something he learned during his stint in the big leagues last year?  Wherever he got it from, that’s a heck of a follow-through.

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5 May 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Posted by on 6 May 2014 Comments Off on 5 May 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Binghamton’s bats go cold and Brian Burgamy gets burned by the hot corner

It sure seemed like all of Binghamton’s bats were broken last night…

Last month, the Binghamton Mets scored 26 runs over their four-game series in Manchester, leaving with three wins and one loss.  That one loss was the game started by Monday’s starter, Tyler Pill.  With Pill up against the league’s worst offense, the Mets put on a show of inadequacy at the plate and in the infield that allowed the Fisher Cats to take the game with a 5-0 shutout.

Box Score

The last time he was here, Tyler Pill couldn’t make it through the 5th inning and was charged with 7 runs, all earned.  I guess you could call this an improvement then.  The Fisher Cats were batting a league-worst .225 coming into this series, but Pill’s fastball was sitting at only 87mph.  What happens when you attack a weak offense with a slow fastball?

And that was only a double…

Yeah, that.  Pill made it through the first seven batters without allowing a baserunner, but number 8 sent Pill’s offering high above the right field foul pole to give New Hampshire a 1-0 lead.  That would remain their only baserunner until it all fell apart in the bottom of the 5th.

Brian Burgamy fell flat on defense last night. He had trouble in the field too.

It isn’t easy being the oldest player on a minor league team, but Brian Burgamy held his own in last month’s series in Manchester.  Last night, not so much.  In addition to going 0-4 at the plate, Burgamy was charged with two errors and had several other missed plays in the field.  It all started going wrong with one out and a runner on second in the bottom of the 5th inning.  A foul pop dropped a baseball into the second row and Burgamy into the first.  The next ball put in play went to Burgamy, who swiped at the runner but couldn’t make the tag.  The throw to first was late and off, leaving runners on first and third on what should have been the second out and could have been an inning-ending double play.  A walk and a failed double play later, Burgamy got another chance to end the inning on a bunt down the third base line.  Unfortunately, he was slow to get to the ball and rushed the throw, missing the mark completely and putting runners on second and third with another run scoring.  The inning would end with the Fisher Cats padding their lead to 3-0, but fate wasn’t done with Burgamy just yet.

This stadium has a way of evening out luck in a very short amount of time.  One day you win by 11 runs, the next you lose by 11 runs.  And so it stood to reason that Brian Burgamy would get a shot at redemption sooner rather than later.  That would come in the 8th inning with the score still 3-0 Fisher Cats.  With one out, Jon Berti sent a line drive just over Burgamy, almost close enough to grab.  Almost.  The ball glanced off the tip of Burgamy’s glove to give Berti a single, which he quickly followed with a stolen base that had him on third base when Kevin Plawecki threw the ball away.  A double brought in another run and, with two outs, a ground ball was hit straight at Burgamy.  And got past him on a nasty hop, bringing in another run.  Burgamy’s redemption would have to wait for another day.

For Binghamton’s offense, luck was on autocorrect all night.  The B-Mets took full advantage of New Hampshire’s fielding deficiencies to put runners on base several times.  Three double plays quickly erased most of those.  After putting runners on second and third in the first inning, no Binghamton runner would reach third base for the rest of the night.  The top of the 5th is a typical example.  With one out, Dustin Lawley hits an infield single to third, making up for his broken bat groundout to third in the 2nd inning:

And then Wilfredo Tovar does this:

Bat flippin’ at a major league level – call him up!

Despite the epic bat flip, that’s an inning-ending double play.  Tovar would get retribution in the form of a HBP in the 8th, which, of course, was negated by a double play.  It’s a vicious cycle…

The top of the 9th left lady luck with a few loose ends to tie up.  Matt Reynolds, who started the failed double play in the 5th, would go on to break up a double play in the 9th with a takeout slide.  That put Kevin Plawecki on first base with two outs, which quickly became Plawecki on second base with two outs when New Hampshire gave back the base they took on his error in the previous inning.  That also gave the B-Mets their first runner in scoring position since the first inning.  Cory Vaughn then put the ball in the air for only the fourth time of the night for the entire Binghamton lineup, but this was the result:

The Fisher Cats win points for style. Also, the game.

Final score: New Hampshire 5, Binghamton 0

13 April 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Posted by on 14 April 2014 Comments Off on 13 April 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

He’s the walking man, born to walk, walk on walking man

Matt Clark watches one of 20 balls he saw on Sunday

Matt Clark is not the fastest runner on this team.  Twice this series, Clark grounded out on plays with less than stellar fielding.  He also had two home runs, so that brisk jog is working rather well for him.  In the series finale though, Clark proved that the eye is mightier than the leg with five straight walks, two of which eventually brought him around to score.  All that walking pushed the game time past the three hour mark despite a lack of offense on the opposing side as the Mets finished off the series with a 6-0 win over the Fisher Cats.

Box Score

Hansel Robles hasn’t seen his prospect status rise since his playoff run two years ago on the all-star Brooklyn Cyclones rotation.  He hasn’t gone bust either, but this outing illustrated why he’s in prospect limbo.  At times, he was lights out, with six strikeouts over five shutout innings, two of which saw the Fisher Cats go down in order.  It took him 81 pitches to get through those five innings though, two of which ended with the bases loaded.  It was a mixed bag of an outing that left the B-Mets bullpen on the hook for another four innings.

Travis Taijeron frequently looked lost on the basepaths

New Hampshire pitcher Aaron Sanchez had a few problems of his own, but fastball speed sure wasn’t one of them.  At 92-95, Sanchez’s fastball was easily the fastest of the series.  Speed alone wasn’t enough though; the Mets put runners in scoring position in each of the first two innings but failed to score because of double plays and baserunning blunders like Travis Taijeron getting a late read on the stop sign after rounding second and getting caught with nowhere to go.  Taijeron would find himself in a similar situation later in the game when he rounded second on a fly ball that was caught and couldn’t get all the way back to first base in time.  The lane from second to third claimed another victim in the 8th when Wilfredo Tovar saw the runner ahead of him hold up at third and turned around to see second base occupied.  Tovar held perfectly still between second and third and went unnoticed for a short time before someone realized that the count of runners vs. bases was off.  Looks like Binghamton will be working on some baserunning drills…

Dustin Lawley follows Matt Clark’s walk with a HBP

After going down in order in the third, the B-Mets got on the board in the fourth inning without putting a ball in play.  After Matt Clark took his customary walk, Aaron Sanchez hit the next two batters to load the bases and then used a 95mph fastball to walk in the game’s first run.  After giving up a sac fly and an RBI single, Sanchez struck out Darrell Ceciliani to end his outing on a high note.

Brad Glenn strikes out to end the 5th inning

Robles got into his biggest jam in the 5th when Mike Crouse hit a ground ball down the right field line that veered into the New Hampshire bullpen and settled under a tarp.  Crouse reached third by the time Travis Taijeron was able to dig the ball out from under the tarp but the ball was never ruled dead.  Binghamton Manager Pedro Lopez came out to argue, to no avail.  Robles, clearly flustered by the situation, got the next batter to ground out and then hit Kenny Wilson with a pitch, drawing words from the home plate umpire.  A strikeout, stolen base, and walk loaded the bases with two outs, but Robles struck Brad Glenn out to end the inning with a smile.

Cody Satterwhite took over to pitch the 6th and 7th innings, giving up just one hit in that span.  John Church struck out the side in the 8th and Jon Velasquez pitched a perfect 9th to secure the shutout victory.  That side of the game went quickly, but the top half of each inning slowed the pace considerably.

Dustin Lawley finds a less painful way to get on base

While the Fisher Cats only managed a lone single over the final third of the game, the B-Mets put runners on second and third in three straight innings.  Darrell Ceciliani scored on a passed ball in the 7th, but that was the only Mets run in the final third until Dustin Lawley doubled in a run with nobody out in the 9th.  Cory Vaughn drove in the game’s final run with a pop fly before the B-Mets stranded Lawley at third.

This lopsided story left me nothing to say about Jon Velasquez.  So here he is, presented without comment.

Mike Crouse strikes out to end the game

10 April 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Posted by on 11 April 2014 Comments Off on 10 April 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

The B-Mets go balls to the (center field) wall

The last time I saw Darin Gorski, the Fisher Cats jumped all over him for 9 runs in 4+ innings.  Two years later, Gorski is back in control despite a fastball that tops out around 88mph.  Like the pitcher in Big Windup though, He was able to use what he had effectively enough to strike out 10 while only giving up one unearned run in 6 innings of work.  That one run wasn’t enough to beat a B-Mets offense that seemed to have it out for the 400ft deep center field fence and produced 9 runs to give the Mets an easy win.

Box Score

The last time I saw Kevin Plawecki, he struck out looking (and swearing) to end the game in a Cyclones loss.  Plawecki was swinging away on Thursday night, though his first attempts weren’t pretty.  He then grounded out to third three times in a row before finally reaching base on an error in the 9th to cap an 0-5 night.  Defensively, he didn’t fare much better, producing the lone run for the Fisher Cats.

Binghamton started the center field assault in the top of the second when Jayce Boyd bounced one off the wall for a double.  Fisher Cats center fielder Kenny Wilson jumped into the wall after it but was unable to make the grab.  Dustin Lawley then put one over the left field wall to give the B-Mets a 2-0 lead.

Meanwhile, Darin Gorski was dealing, ending both the second and third innings on swinging strikeouts.  The only runner he allowed in the first three innings was on a ball that Darrell Ceciliani misplayed off the center field wall and very well could have turned into an inside-the-park home run.  The runner held up at third and then got to spend the next two at-bats watching Gorski do his thing.

The Fisher Cats offense came alive in the 4th when Jon Berti reached on a bunt single and then stole second on a strikeout.  Plawecki’s throw was on target but late, about what you would expect from a catcher known more for his bat than his arm.  Berti then quickly stole third on an inside pitch to the right-handed Brad Glenn.  The pitch pushed everyone into the worst possible position for Plawecki to make a throw, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to see the ball fly into left field, scoring Berti.  Gorski then issued two walks, putting runners on first and second with one out in what was now a 2-1 game before a double play ended the threat.

Binghamton resumed their assault on the center field wall in the 5th, but their attempts were weak and off target.  After giving Fisher Cats left fielder Mike Crouse a good workout, the B-Mets claimed victory when Brian Burgamy crushed one over the wall in the deepest part of the park.  With the wall slain and a healthy 5-1 lead, it was up to Gorski to return to form and keep the Fisher Cats in check.

Which he did, ending the next two innings on swinging strikeouts while allowing just a pair of singles before what would be his 10th and final strikeout of the night.  With his fastball sitting at 88, Gorski was getting a lot more contact putting balls in play instead of the foul balls that had been setting up his earlier strikeouts.  Still, it was a solid outing.

Both sides went to the bullpen in the 7th, which didn’t work out well for the Fisher Cats.  After a single, stolen base, single, and walk, the B-Mets had the bases loaded with no outs in the top of the 7th.  Brian Burgamy, not one to follow suit with this whole “everyone gets on base” thing, grounded into a double play to drive in a run.  Kevin Plawecki then grounded out to third for the third time to end the inning.

First up from the B-Mets pen was Jon Velasquez, who exited without incident after a 1-2-3 inning.  Adam Kolarek came in to finish things out, as he always seems to do around here when a big lead is involved.  Not closer material, I guess.  Brian Burgamy once again broke pattern when the Fisher Cats were helping the B-Mets with some fielding drills.  After ground outs to third and short, Burgamy bobbled the ground ball to second.  This guy really does not like patterns.

Kevin Plawecki doesn’t always ground out to third. Sometimes he reaches on error after grounding to second.

The Manchester air turned chilly by the 9th inning, so you would expect the Mets, already weary from an overnight bus trip and now 6 trips around the bases, to want to wrap things up quickly.  Cory Vaughn started things off right by sending the first pitch into Kenny Wilson’s glove (via a slick sliding catch), but the next three batters resumed the assault on center field with three consecutive doubles.  That brought up pattern-buster Brian Burgamy.  Burgamy walked.  After a pitching change, Kevin Plawecki changed up his pattern, grounding out to second instead of third.  Or at least he would have if the second baseman hadn’t thrown the ball away going for the force out at second and, likely, an inning-ending double play.  Plawecki ended the night karma-neutral on throwing errors and the run that scored on the play was the final one in this 9-1 B-Mets victory.