Tag Archives: Jon Velasquez

18 May 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Posted by on 20 May 2014 Comments Off on 18 May 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

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.

Box Score

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…

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.