Post-game Pop-ups: PawSox 7, Mud Hens 4

Swift summation
The visiting Toledo Mud Hens garnered 12 hits, their most in any of eight individual meetings with the Pawtucket Red Sox in the 2012 season. But PawSox cleanup man Lars Anderson was the most influential batter in McCoy Stadium Sunday evening. 

Piloted by Anderson’s 3-for-3 night, complete with two of the team’s five home runs, three runs-scored and three runs batted in, Pawtucket wrested away a 7-4 decision, claiming three out of four games during the Hens’ visit.

Toledo charged up 11 of its 12 hits within the first six innings and had a baserunner in each stanza but the seventh and ninth. But the visitors would only lead in the wee phases of the night, playing catch-up for the subsequent eight frames.

An early jam had Mud Hens at the corners with one out in the top of the first. Cleanup man Brad Eldred subsequently lobbed a deep sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Justin Henry from third for an early 1-0 advantage.

Only nine pitches into the home half, though, the PawSox usurped a 2-1 lead on back-to-back solo homers by Pedro Ciriaco to left and Nate Spears to right. And with still only one out in the stanza, Anderson deposited a dinger over the right-field wall himself.

Spears and Anderson collaborated in the bottom of the third to augment the lead to 4-1. Spears led off with a full-count walk and then advanced to second on a wild pitch to Darnell McDonald and to third on McDonald’s sacrifice fly. Anderson’s first-pitch rolling single into shallow right brought Spears home without much further hesitation.

Toledo whittled the deficit back down to 4-2 in the fourth, when a one-out, bases-loaded single by Jeff Frazier scored Brad Eldred.

With Clayton Mortenson on in relief of starter Brandon Duckworth to commence the sixth, the Hens drew a 4-4 knot. Frazier followed Bryan Holaday’s one-out single with a double to the corner in left field, watched his teammate score on Argenis Diaz’s sacrifice grounder, then hustled home for the equalizer with the help of Ben Guez’s straightaway single.

But in the home half, Anderson’s second solo blast to right field swiftly renewed Pawtucket’s lead to 5-4.

Two innings later, Anderson went on board for the fourth consecutive time with a leadoff walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch, then rode home with Alex Hassan after the latter belted a two-run laser to left-center off of Matt Hoffman.

Each taking one inning in succession of Mortensen, Tony Pena, Jr. and Will Inman combined to bring down six straight Mud Hens, salvaging the victory in the weekend series and the split of the season series.

PawSox pluses

The first two homers of the night stoked a pair of PawSox hot streaks. Ciriaco’s leadoff longball, his second home run of the season and first since April 25, assured him a six-game hitting streak and a run scored in each of his last five outings. Meanwhile, Spears has extended his hitting streak to seven games and went 4-for-10 in the series.

In the bottom of the second, Tony Thomas stole a base for the third time in as many games-played this homestand and advanced to third on the Toledo catcher Holaday’s throwing error. Although, he would be stranded by Ciriaco’s flyout to left.

Quick thinking and quick feet helped to bail Duckworth out of the Mud Hens’ half of the third inning. With two aggressive runners at the corners and nobody out, Duckworth collaborated with Anderson at first and Ciriaco at short to catch Ben Guez in a rundown. Once Guez was deleted, Ciriaco relayed the ball back to Duckworth, whose throw to Mike Rivera at home cut down Henry.

Sox stains

Easy come, easy go for Josh Kroeger, who was benched on strikes in each of three showdowns with Toledo starter Thad Weber. This coming after he had gone 2-for-7 in the previous two games, an improvement on his 0-for-13 showing when the PawSox visited the Mud Hens at the beginning of the month.

In his fourth at-bat, with Anderson in scoring position and the Sox looking for insurance in the eighth, Kroeger was caught looking at a payoff pitch for his fourth whiff.

Kroeger was joined in the 0-for-4 department by McDonald and Mauro Gomez, who is 0-for-11 over the last three games and has struck out five times in the last two.

Mud Hens notes

Playing his only game of the series in left field and batting eighth, Frazier hit 4-for-4 with an RBI and run scored. Joining him in his team’s multi-hit club were Guez, Henry and Holaday.

Diaz ended two innings by hitting into a double-play. One of them, a liner to Duckworth that also caught Frazier in the basepaths, ended the second. The other, an old-fashioned 4-6-3 eliminated himself and Frazier in the eighth.

Weber, who lasted six innings, was tagged with the loss and dropped to 3-3 on the year. 

Miscellany

Rivera played his first game of the homestand, giving top catcher Ryan Lavarnway the night off.

Ronald Bermudez succeeded McDonald in right field as a defensive replacement to commence the eighth inning.

Mortensen followed Junichi Tazawa as Pawtucket’s second pitcher in as many nights to record both a blown save and a win. Pena earned his first hold of the 2012 campaign while Inman earned his third save. 

The PawSox will welcome in the Norfolk Tides for the second half of the homestand, beginning with a 4:05 game Monday afternoon.

This Date In Providence Bruins History: May 27

2005: Four different goal-getters chase Philadelphia Phantoms goaltender Antero Niittymaki before the halfway mark of regulation and help Providence claim Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, 6-4, at The Dunk. The Phantoms delete a 4-1 deficit before Brad Boyes scores his second game-winner of the series for the P-Bruins with 70 seconds to spare in regulation.

Post-game Pop-ups: PawSox 8, Mud Hens 5

Swift summation

Two could play at this game, and they did Saturday night at McCoy Stadium.

First, the Pawtucket Red Sox bullpen―more specifically, Junichi Tazawa―egregiously squandered a rehabbing Daisuke Matsuzaka’s bid for a victory over the Toledo Mud Hens, letting a 1-0 lead devolved into a 5-1 pothole.

That put an equally sharp Toledo starter, Casey Crosby in a position to win his second decision in as many bouts with the PawSox this season. But the Mud Hens bullpen―more specifically, Luke Putkonen―only needed four batters-faced to let the 5-1 lead devolve into a 7-5 PawSox lead in the bottom of the eighth.

That 7-5 advantage eventually turned into an 8-5 victory for Pawtucket, hardly the type of finish either starting hurler had arranged through six innings of one-run baseball. (If only this were Little League, the two must have thought.)

Crosby nearly matched Matsuzaka’s feat of back-to-back 1-2-3 innings in the second before Josh Kroeger slugged the first pitch he faced over the right-field wall. Following that play, Tony Thomas smelled an open wound in the water, snuck in an infield single to short and promptly stole second base on the first pitch to Ronald Bermudez, though his teammate would strand him there.

The Mud Hens got to the bottom of their batting order before achieving their first baserunner, Argenis Diaz, who dropped a two-out single to shallow ground in straightaway center.

Other than that and a fourth-inning walk to Matt Young, Matsuzaka would not let anyone on base through his five innings of work. Although, neither did Crosby through the fourth, fifth and sixth stanzas.

Crosby’s continued proficiency after the third-inning blemish held up the Hens long enough to exploit Tazawa and usurp the lead in the top of the seventh. Young led off with a single, advanced to second on Brad Eldred’s walk, then came home on Eric Patterson’s one-out base hit.

Eldred found his way to third on Omir Santos’ sacrifice fly to centerfield, then came home on Tazawa’s balk with a 2-1 count on Audy Ciriaco, giving the visitors an identical 2-1 advantage.

One inning later, designated hitter Brad Eldred belted a three-run shot off Tazawa to right-center, carrying Justin Henry and Young home to break open a 5-1 lead.

Crosby gave way to Putkonen after letting his first two challengers on base in the bottom of the eighth. Putkonen’s first batter, a pinch-hitter in Nate Spears, doubled to center to score Thomas and put Ronald Bermudez on third. 

Pedro Ciriaco’s own two-bagger whittled the deficit down to 5-4. And two batters later, with Alex Hassan on first, Ryan Lavarnway thrust Putkonen’s first pitch over the left-field wall, restoring Pawtucket’s advantage at 7-5 with still no outs.

By the time there were two outs, Lars Anderson was on second and primed to come home on Thomas’ double to left, making it 8-5. 

PawSox pluses

Perhaps a change of scenery was all Kroeger needed to get the hang of the Pawtucket-Toledo matchup. After going 0-for-13 earlier this month during the team’s four-night stay in northwest Ohio, he is now a comparatively better (2-for-7) in this series with a pair of extra-base hits.

And besides getting the dinger, Kroeger was one of only two Pawtucket batters not to endure a strikeout from Crosby. The other was Lavarnway, who also drew a four-pitch walk on the Mud Hens southpaw to lead off the seventh.

Although the visiting starter’s arm was on its last ounces in their final encounter, Thomas stood out by getting half of Pawtucket’s four hits off of Crosby, the second being a leadoff single in the eighth. And both times he was on board, Thomas’ aggressive baserunning was undeniable, which only made it fitting that he had the honor of starting the epic eighth-inning rally.

Between Matsuzaka and Tazawa, Choryne Spoone was just as sharp as Matsuzaka was in his relief stint, pitching a 1-2-3 sixth inning. Mark Melancon was likewise swift to suppress the Mud Hens in the ninth, garnering his third straight save in a span of five days.

Sox stains

It only took Tazawa two challengers to match his countryman Matsuzaka’s total baserunners as he yielded a single and a walk to start his relief outing in the seventh. Two batters and six pitches later, Matsuzaka’s bid for a Triple-A rehab victory was once again squandered.

By inning’s end, Tazawa had thrown only 11 of his 21 pitches for strikes and incurred two hits, two earned runs and a lead-spilling balk on his tab.

Given a chance to make amends in the eighth, Tazawa instead quadrupled the deficit and swelled his line up to five runs, five hits and only 24 strikes out of 41 pitches.

Ironically, even with the blown save, the eighth-inning eruption by the PawSox meant Tazawa got credit for the win on a night when he was pretty much the lone occupant of the third-base clubhouse who didn’t deserve victory. On Saturday, he was Curt Schilling and the PawSox offense was the local state government. 

Mud Hens notes

When he benched Mauro Gomez in the bottom of the seventh, Crosby had thrown a season-high 10 strikeouts in a single start.

Ben Guez, called up from the Double-A Erie Seawolves at the start of this series, struck out against three different Pawtucket hurlers: Matsuzaka in the first, Spoone in the sixth and Tazawa in the eighth.

Young whittled a single off Tazawa in back-to-back innings, which on top of his walk against Matsuaka made him the only Toledo player to reach base twice, let alone three times, up to the two-out mark of the eighth inning. Eldred would promptly join his multi-hit company with his three-run blast in the eighth.

Between Crosby, Putkonen and Darin Downs, the Mud Hens pitching staff combined to deal with 11 PawSox batters in the bottom of the eighth. 

Miscellany

Rain pushed Saturday’s first pitch back by a little less than 15 minutes.

With his third no-decision in as many rehab starts at McCoy this season, Matsuzaka’s Triple-A record remains 0-1 in 2012 and 3-2 in his career with the Red Sox.

The Hens left only two men stranded on base, the Sox three.

On a night when it looked like the PawSox would lose for the seventh time when scoring first, they instead improved to 23-6 in that scenario.