Another football score between the Defs and B-Mets..
9-0 in favor of the visting Mets tonight. This one was over in a hurry as the Mets pushed across 6 runs in the second and another in the third for a 7-0 lead. Dave McKae takes the loss going 4.1 IP giving up 8 runs, all earned, with 10 hits and a pair of walks. His record on the season stands at 3-3 with a 6.29 ERA. Key play in the second with the bases loaded, no score and one out; the #8 batter hits a slow runner to Connecticut 2B Kyles Haines who tried for the force at home and didn't get it. Instead of taking the sure out at first for the second out of the inning with the pitcher batting next, the bases remained loaded and the pitcher hits a sac fly instead of flying out for the third out. The inning totally falls apart after that.
The Defs collect just six hits most of them late. Dave Maroul was the only Defender with two hits.
Misc fan notes: The free rosters set out on the table as you come in didn't list Brad Boyer on the team. Perhaps he was sent down to make room for Sergio Romo? Milb.com doesn't have him anywhere.
Unseasonable weather would be an understatement; 50 degrees on May 19th and I'm wearing gloves. More people in the stands than I would have thought however.
First chance seeing Jake Wald and Josh Sharpless this season. Josh gave up a run in two innings and struck out three.
Reserve stand tickets cost just $4.00 as that's the price of a gallon of gas today. Defs will be running that promo every Monday; the price of a gallon of gas = the ticket price of a reserve ticket. Good to see the front office trying different things!
Got to wonder when the team arrived home from Bowie as the start of Sunday's game was delayed 2 hours and how much rest they had before tonight's game.
Tonight's loss was the fourth in row and drops Connecticut into fifth place, seven games out of first and 2 games under .500.
posted by greg8370 at 9:19 PM
4 Comments:
Bummer.
That was Mike Carp's first full game back in a few weeks. I Expect him to be in AAA by the all star break.
Hinshaw had a good night for SF last night....3 up three down in the 9th with 2 k's.
5:04 AM
I'm quickly beginning to lose my positive feeling for Bien.
For the second time he's blames his teams listless performance on Dodd and now he's going after the fans. Bien, Binghamton hitters don't seem to be having a problem here. As a matter of fact, they've out hit you in all three games here, out pitched you, outplayed you and won all three games.
Bien, stop your damn whining about the ballpark, give the players a well deserved boot in the rear, and get them to show some spunk.
I'm fed up with watching the same futility every damn year and having the ball park take the blame instead of lousy player performances.
7:40 AM
Norwich, Conn. — Flat.
From the pitching to the offense to the defense, it was the one word that manager Bien Figueroa had for his Connecticut Defenders performance against the Binghamton Mets on Monday night.
The Defenders, coming off a three-game sweep at the hands of Bowie, returned home to find things didn’t get much better as they lost to the Mets at Dodd Stadium, 9-0.
Connecticut (20-22) started a six-game road trip with two out of three wins in New Hampshire, but things quickly went downhill in Bowie where they lost all three games of a weekend series to fall under the .500 mark.
“We’re just playing flat the last three games,” Figueroa said. “We’re up and down, win two, lose two, win three, lose three. We’re not consistent.”
One of the reasons for that inconsistency, Dodd Stadium itself.
The Defenders, according to Figueroa, are hitting .280 on the road, but when they come home that average drops about a hundred points.
“That tells you everything,” Figueroa said. “When we go on the road, we pitch good and we hit good. When we come here, we pitch good and we don’t hit. I don’t know if (his players) feel the park is two big, but two fly balls for outs we hit here (Monday night) would have been home runs in Binghamton.”
There’s also the question of intensity on the field.
In Bowie this weekend, the BaySox drew more than 9,000 fans on Saturday night for their game against the Defenders. That’s almost a third of what Connecticut has drawn for all of their home dates this season and Monday brought another sparse crowd to Dodd Stadium.
“(Bowie) was my old team and when you play in front of 10,000 fans, that’s kind of enjoyable,” Figueroa said. “When you’re here and there’s not a lot of fans- it’s hard. It gets boring sometimes, I don’t like to say that, but that’s what they call home field advantage.”
Third baseman Dave Maroul said the players on the field don’t pay attention to the lack of fans.
“It’s not that bad,” Maroul said. “We come out and play and there’s enough fans out here, we hear them, they’re good. It’s a little different than 9,000 but other than that, you get the same experience. Fans come out and support you.”
The fans didn’t have much to cheer about Monday night as the Defenders fell behind by six runs in the second inning when the Mets (21-22) sent 11 batters to the plate against Connecticut starting and losing pitcher Dave McKae (2-2).
Emmanuel Garcia had a two-run single, Dan Murphy doubled home another and Mike Carp (3-4, two runs scored, one RBI) added a run-scoring single.
“He has had trouble the last two or three outings, he hasn’t thrown well at all,” Figueroa said of McKae, who came in sporting a 5.18 earned run average and hasn’t gone five innings in his last three outings.
Maroul had two of the Defenders five hits including a ninth — inning double. Antoan Richardson had the only other extra-base hit, a triple, in the sixth inning.
The two teams meet again at 6:35 p.m. tonight at Dodd Stadium with Joey Martinez (2-3) pitching for Connecticut against Binghamton’s Jonathan Niese (2-4).
Reach Sports Editor Marc Allard at 425-4212 or mallard@norwichbulletin.com
5:07 PM
Players read the paper and they read the blogs, this one included. Bien needs to stand in the middle of the locker room and tell his players he was flat wrong for what he said. And then he's got to walk the talk or he's lost this team.
Re: his comments to the fans, how about signing autographs this weekend up on the concourse for a little meet and greet? Maybe he'll get some perspective for the folks who do show up.
8:32 PM
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