Post-game Pop-ups: PawSox 3, Chiefs 2

Swift Summation
It took the Pawtucket Red Sox three-and-a-half innings and a few bend-don’t-break moments on defense to start exploiting an experiential discrepancy in Monday night’s starting pitching matchup. 

They ultimately lost their delayed rewards and needed to work overtime to regain them. But they did just that with a little help from erratic relief pitching en route to a 3-2 triumph over the Syracuse Chiefs at McCoy Stadium. Back-to-back wild pitches by Daniel Stange brought home Justin Henry in the bottom of the tenth.

For the better part of Monday’s earlier stages, Chris Hernandez, he of 33 previous appearances on a Triple-A mound, countered I.L. debutant Blake Treinen. Yet much of their duel involved Syracuse inducing sweat to Hernandez and the McCoy faithful.

Pawtucket’s first two baserunners—Dan Butler in the third and Christian Vazquez in the fourth—reached on a fielding error. By that point, Syracuse had already placed four hits on Hernandez’s tab.

The Chiefs loaded the bases on three unanswered one-out singles in the third. But Hernandez fanned Jeff Kobernus on three looking strikes and induced a grounder by Steve Souza to quell the threat.

The Sox hatched their “H” column goose-egg in the fourth, when Corey Brown’s no-out double put himself and Vazquez in scoring position. On the next pitch, Brandon Snyder broke the ice where it mattered most by scoring Vazquez on a base hit.

Brown hustled to third when Bryce Brentz grounded into a double play, then doubled the lead to 2-0 with the help of Garin Cecchini’s deposit in right-center.

Syracuse cut the difference to 2-1 in the sixth. A pair of Pawtucket fielding errors placed Zach Walters and Steve Souza at the corners before Jhonatan Solano drove Souza home on a single.

Two innings later, the Chiefs loaded the bases on a single and back-to-back walks. Bryan Villareal’s wild pitch to Emmanuel Burriss invited Solano home from third to draw a 2-2 knot.

Syracuse outhit Pawtucket, 10-4, and the Sox did not cultivate any bases with their bats after Butler’s seventh-inning double. Two walks and the two wild pitches did the trick in the tenth.

PawSox Pluses

In both the second and fourth innings, the middle of the infield followed the same procedure under the same circumstances to stifle Syracuse and sustain the scoreless draw.

Both times, Zach Walters reached base with one away. But on the next play, second baseman Mike McCoy fielded a Solano grounder and handed things over to shortstop Heiker Meneses, whose tag and toss to first terminated the Chiefs’ turn.

Between those defensive dandies, McCoy and Meneses each sacrificed their turns at bat to send Butler to third base in the bottom of the third.

Meneses collaborated with the catcher Vazquez to foil Burriss’ stealing attempt in the seventh. From there, relief pitcher Alex Wilson struck out Eury Perez and Souza to polish the frame.

Vazquez softened another Syracuse threat in the ninth by picking off Souza at first before Brock Peterson struck out looking to strand Perez on second.

Sox Stains

Hernandez had several shaky stretches in 4.2 innings of work. Three of his 92 pitches fell in the dirt and a total of 37 went down as balls. His only no-hit inning was the second, when he walked Walters, and he twice let the Chiefs load the bases.

The second instance came on the heels of losing his shutout when Brian Goodwin belted a single on a 3-1 delivery. At that point, manager Kevin Boles forked him out in favor of Wilson.

The bullpen was not much better. Rich Hill started the eighth by retiring his first two challengers, only to give up a two-out single to Solano and walk Goodwin. At that point, Villarreal took over, threw a wild pitch whilst loading the bases on another walk and then tossed another fugitive ball for Solano’s equalizer. 

Chiefs Notes

Former Red Sox reliever Manny Delcarmen served as Treinen’s first successor, charging up a 1-2-3 sixth on 20 pitches.

Despite batting eighth and ninth, respectively, Brandon Laird and Burriss nailed two hits apiece to account for half of the Chiefs’ first eight of the night. Solano joined them in the multi-hit club when he swatted a two-out single in the eighth, as did Perez with a leadoff base hit in the ninth.

The cleanup man Peterson, who came into the series on the three-game hit streak, was the only visiting batter not to reach base in any fashion. He went 0-for-5 with two groundouts, a liner, a pop-up and a strikeout.

After allowing a double to Butler. Xavier Cedeno pitched an otherwise two seamless innings of relief, retiring six straight, including three strikeouts, in the seventh and eighth.

Miscellany

Craig Breslow, who is rehabbing a shoulder injury en route back to Boston, delayed Hernandez’s start by pitching the first inning. The PawSox explained via Twitter that potential rain later in the game compelled the club to ensure action for Breslow rather than risk waiting for a potentially nonexistent relief opportunity.

Craig Resop, who came on in the tenth and struck out two of his four batters-faced, picked up credit for the win.

Henry, ordinarily a second baseman, took to center field for his 2014 season debut.

Because of unfavorable weather over the better part of the I.L. map, the Sox and Chiefs engaged in one of only two games across the league Monday night. The other was a battle of North Carolina with the Durham Bulls hosting the Charlotte Knights.

Starting 9: Nine Facts To Take Into The PawSox-Chiefs Series

Two International League North Division rivals will try to hop on or above the .500 fence when the Pawtucket Red Sox host the Syracuse Chiefs in a three-game set this week. Pawtucket is coming off a four-game split with Lehigh Valley while the Chiefs dropped two of three to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. (Inclement weather forced the postponement of the fourth game.)

After two full off days, the Chiefs and RailRiders exchanged shutouts in a Sunday doubleheader, making up at least one of their postponements. Syracuse claimed the early tilt by a 3-0 final before dropping a 5-0 decision.

With Monday night’s series opener, a former Red Sox minor-league manager will see meaningful action at McCoy Stadium for the first time in his career. First-year Syracuse skipper Billy Gardner never donned PawSox garb, but did work under Boston auspices with Lowell, Michigan, Augusta, Trenton and Sarasota from 1996 to 2002.

Gardner was the inaugural manager of the Lowell Spinners in 1996 and led the Augusta Greenjackets to the South Atlantic League title in 1999. He won the 2007 Southern League crown with the Montgomery Biscuits.

Former PawSox pitcher Manny Delcarmen, now in Washington’s system, made his Syracuse debut with one inning of relief against the RailRiders this past Thursday. The Chiefs are Delcarmen’s fifth Triple-A employer since he left the Red Sox late in the 2010 campaign.

Baseball Prospectus ranks Syracuse centerfielder Brian Goodwin third among Nationals prospects. Baseball America has Goodwin in the same echelon plus fellow Chiefs outfielder Steve Souza at No. 10.

Both players are seeing their first doses of International League action this month and off to unflattering starts. Goodwin struck out six times over nine at-bats in the Scranton series while Souza boasts a Blutarsky batting average, though he has walked in three of his first 10 plate appearances, translating two of those into runs.

Another Triple-A newbie, Blake Treinen, is expected to toe the rubber for the Chiefs in Monday night’s series opener. Counterpart Chris Hernandez is on tap to make his 24th start and 33rd career appearances with the PawSox.

 

The Sox edged the Chiefs in last year’s season series, 9-7, claiming three out of four games in each of Syracuse’s two visits to McCoy.

Post-game Pop-ups: IronPigs 5, PawSox 4

Swift Summation
The Pawtucket Red Sox were one-inning wonders in the final installment of their 2014 season-opening series Sunday afternoon. After cracking open a 3-0 advantage, they let the Lehigh Valley IronPigs retort with five unanswered runs en route to a 5-4 final at McCoy Stadium.

Garin Cecchini opened the scoring in the second when his one-out single to center drove Brandon Snyder home from second base. Cecchini moved along with the help of a wild pitch, a Christian Vazquez base hit and a Corey Brown sac fly to spawn a 2-0 advantage.

After Pigs pitcher Jonathan Pettibone’s second fugitive toss of the inning put Vazquez in scoring position, Heiker Meneses pounced to knock in the third PawSox run.

Lehigh Valley wasted little time filling the pothole on its next turn. With runners at the corners and no outs, Clete Thomas doubled to wave his mates home and whittle the deficit down to 3-2. He moved to third on a wild pitch and crossed the plate himself for the equalizer on a sacrifice grounder by Maikel Franco.

Two-and-a-half uneventful stanzas followed before the Pigs picked on Pawtucket’s first reliever, Tommy Layne. With one out in the sixth, Layne authorized a triple to Reid Brignac and then watched Cameron Rupp belt a 1-2 pitch over the left-field wall.

The resultant 5-3 difference stood until the PawSox’ half of the eighth. Alex Hassan led off with a double to the centerfield warning track and found his way home on back-to-back sacrifice grounders via Ryan Lavarnway and Bryce Brentz.

Apart from a pair of walks, IronPig relievers Kyle Simon and Luis Garcia stifled the Sox thereafter, ensuring a split for the weekend.

PawSox Pluses

Meneses was a nominal No. 9 hitter Sunday, moving Vazquez along the diamond on a pair of hits. In addition to the aforementioned third-inning RBI, he moved his teammate to third base on a two-out single in the seventh. He later waited out four consecutive balls to represent the tying run when his team was down to its final out in the ninth.

Dalier Hinojosa kept the hosts within striking range with two efficient innings of relief. Save for an eighth-inning walk to Rupp, he retired every IronPig he faced, benching the last two on strikes for a 1-2-3 ninth.

Sox Stains

Minus the second inning, the Pawtucket bat rack could not solve Pettibone. The Sox snuffed out 1-2-3 in the first, third and fifth. The fourth saw Pettibone yield his only other baserunner with a walk to Cecchini, whose journey ended when Vazquez bounced into a double play.

Cecchini brooked a bigger blunder on the other side of the ball. The third baseman’s fielding error gave Leandro Castro a free pass to lead off what would be the critical top half of the third.

Mike McCoy batted 0-for-5 and terminated three of Pawtucket’s most important frames. His popout to Rupp at the plate stranded Meneses in scoring position with the third out of the second. Later, with Meneses and Vazquez at the corners and a one-run deficit at hand, he flied out to left to squash the seventh.

Symbolically enough, after Meneses drew his temporarily game-saving walk, Garcia caught McCoy looking at three unanswered strikes to cement the 5-4 upshot.

IronPigs Notes

None of Lehigh Valley’s batters mustered more than one run or one hit on the day. As it happened, No. 3 man Maikel Franco and cleanup man Jim Murphy were the only two who could not grab either, though Murphy did reach base on a third-inning walk.

Pettibone picked up credit for the victory while Hector Neris, Jeremy Horst and Simon each earned a hold with one inning of relief apiece. Garcia garnered his first save of the season.

Miscellany

PawSox starter Jeremy Kehrt percolated mixed results in his 2014 season debut. His stat line for the day yielded five full innings, three hits, three runs (two earned), two walks and four “Ks.” Layne took the loss in his second relief appearance.

With his RBI single, Cecchini assured his status as the only Pawtucket player to muster a hit in all four games of the series.

Outfielder Peter Hissey made his Triple-A debut when he pinch-ran for Brandon Snyder in the home half of the eighth. He would constitute the final out of the inning on a force play at second. Hissey subsequently supplanted Snyder in left field for the defensive portion of the ninth.