Tag Archives: Wilfredo Tovar

The Essentials: 2014 Mets Autographs

The Prospect Boom Goes Bust

With all of the cards released across dozens of products in 2014, it can be hard to figure out what is worth collecting and what might as well be forgotten. What makes something essential? It’s a mix of collectibility, notability, and attainability. Popular brands/inserts and player debuts will dominate here, not big money low-numbered parallels or big stars. Just about everything mentioned here should still be fairly easy to find on the secondary market at reasonable prices.

2014 continued the Mets prospect autograph explosion that started in late 2013, but that fizzled out late in the year. While that meant lots of autographs for many top Mets prospects who had previously been overlooked, it was bad news for the Mets’ 2014 draft class, which is still waiting for its first autograph card from Topps.

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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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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…

17 May 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Rainy Lara’s weaknesses: 7th inning, Ryan Schimpf

Rainy Lara’s previous outing at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium consisted of 7 scoreless innings with just 3 strikeouts.  Despite the results, Lara was clearly gassed by the 7th inning and got lucky on a couple of fly balls to center.  This time around, the strikeouts were up but so was Lara’s 7th inning luck.  Ryan Schimpf had accounted for all of New Hampshire’s offense with a pair of solo home runs before Lara went an inning too far and nearly threw away a 4-run lead.  John Church did his best to limit the damage and Cody Satterwhite pitched a perfect 9th to close out a narrow 6-5 victory.

Box Score

They’ll let anyone to second base around here…

Rainy Lara kept things quick and clean for the first three innings, giving up only two hits while striking out three over that span.  The Mets struck first in the top of the third with three runs on hits from Travis Taijeron, Wilfredo Tovar, Brian Burgamy, and Kevin Plawecki plus a Matt Clark HBP.  Clark was in serious pain after being hit but stayed in the game to run the bases.  Cory Vaughn took his place as DH the next time through the batting order.

Lara got three more strikeouts in the 4th, but only after giving up a solo home run to Ryan Schimpf.  Schimpf hit a second solo home run in the 6th, but that was the extent of New Hampshire’s scoring over the first six innings.

The Mets added a run of their own in the top of the 6th on a Travis Taijeron double that missed being a home run by mere inches.  It was still enough to score Jayce Boyd, who walked earlier in the inning.

Darrell Ceciliani scores from first on a pair of throwing errors

The 7th inning got started with a Darrell Ceciliani single that apparently bugged New Hampshire pitcher John Anderson.  Repeated pickoff attempts have a way of going bad, though Rainy Lara got away with a whole bunch at once earlier in the game.  For Anderson, three was his limit.  Ceciliani made it to third base when the pickoff went awry and then scored when the throw to third had the same result.  I guess that’s one way to get rid of a runner…

In a surprising twist, Cory Vaughn, batting well under .200 this season, hit a double with two outs.  Kevin Plawecki, batting well over .300 this season, then doubled Vaughn home on what appeared to be a routine fly ball.  That would do it for the Mets’ offense, but when’s the last time they blew a 4-run lead?  Oh, right, last night…

It’s never a good sign when runners are rolling around the bases…

Three hits and one out later, Lara was pulled from the game with the lead cut to 6-3.  John Church would go on to allow both inherited runners to score, but neither team managed anything other than a strikeout or groundout over the rest of the game.

Cody Satterwhite strikes out Jon Berti to end the game

Final Score: Bingamton 6, New Hampshire 5

6 May 2014 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

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).

Box Score

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

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