Sometimes you win from your own efforts, sometimes it's given to you. Sometimes you could have won but lost, and sometimes you just blow it. And that was the night on the farm. New Hamsphire were the only winners through a combination of their efforts and Reading doing their best to lose the game. Las Vegas had lots of opportunities to score but came up short. And Dunedin were heading for a win but blew the game in the eighth inning.
Yohan Pino was the standout, throwing 93 pitches to get through his eight innings. Aaron Laffey and Randy Boone pitched well too.
Aaron Laffey pitched quite well until there were two outs in the sixth inning. Up to that point he had allowed one run and the game was tied at one. But then a walk and a home run ended his night and left the 51's behind, a situation they could not extract themselves from.
The 51's had scored their run in the top of the sixth when Travis d'Arnaud came to the plate with the bases loaded and no-one out. d'Arnaud grounded to first, the play came home and back to first for the double play, but a run scored anyway as Gose made it all the way home from second on the play. However scoring just one run from a bases loaded, no out situation, was disappointing. But the Jays were in that same situation in the seventh, down 3-1. The bases were loaded on three walks, no-one out. A sac fly scored one run, a short fly ball and a ground out were unable to add more. In the eighth d'Arnaud led off with a double and a walk put two runners on with no-one out but the 51's could not score. In three straight innings the 51's had eight baserunners on base with no-one out and they scored two of them.
In the ninth Las Vegas had two runners on with one out, trailing by two runs, David Cooper singled to right and the lead runner, Hechavarria, scored but Anthony Gose was thrown out at third. The 51's were unable to score the tying run.
Yan Gomes and Mike McCoy had two hits each.
The Fisher Cats were leading 8-1 after 5 innings and even though Reading scored 3 runs in the eighth the result was never in doubt. Yohan Pino started and pitched eight innings on 93 pitches. Even though he gave up a three run home run in the seventh, those three runs were unearned due to an error earlier in the inning. So Pino was charged with just one earned run over 8 innings.
New Hampshire jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Two Reading errors on the first three batters set the stage for Mike McDade to single and Mark Sobolewski to double. In the fourth a couple of walks led to a sac fly by Jon Diaz and later a runner thrown out at home. In the fifth New Hampshire benefitted from 5 walks in addition to singles by Sobolewski and AJ Jimenez.
The 51's had eight hits, 4 players had two each and five hitters had none. The successful hitters were Ryan Goins, McDade, Sobolewski and Jimenez.
Dunedin had a 3-1 lead after seven innings but the wheels came off the wagon in the eighth. Scott Gracey allowed a ground ball single followed by a walk, followed by a bunt single to load the bases. A walk brought in one run and a single brought in two more and the lead was gone. That ruined a good start from Randy Boone as he makes his way back from Tommy John surgery. Boone went five innings and was charged with one unearned run on three hits.
Dunedin jumped out to a two run lead in the first. John Jones reached on an error, Kevin Nolan and Sean Ochinko singled and a sac fly made it 2-0. In the sixth Kevin Ahrens singled in a run.
Nolan, Ochinko and Ahrens led the offense with two hits each.
Lansing - scheduled day off.
Three stars
3rd star - Anthony Gose
2nd star - Mark Sobolewski
1st star - Yohan Pino
