June 23, 2007 / Sports / Brooklyn Cyclones

Cyclones split first two with Yankees

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Brooklyn Paper

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The Brooklyn Paper / Gary Thomas

J.R. Voyles connects in the sixth inning Tuesday.

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The Brooklyn Paper / Tom Callan

On Wednesday night, Cyclone outfielder Chris Fournier is gunned down at the plate after a bases-loaded groundout. The Clones ended up losing the game 6–3.

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Wait ’til this year!

Avenging the 18–0 loss to the hated Staten Island Yankees on last season’s Opening Night, the Brooklyn Cyclones drew first blood this year against their cross-Narrows rivals with a thrilling 5–1 victory on Tuesday night.

The win was somewhat sullied by a poor performance the next night at the Yankees’ home fortress in Staten Island, where the Clones fell 6–3 to even the season series at one game apiece.

But on Tuesday night, a packed crowd of 8,888 filled a dripping, muggy Keyspan Park on the Coney Island Boardwalk to watch the Cyclones begin their seventh quest for the New York-Penn League championship, facing off against the league’s defending titans.

Those fans may have paid for a whole seat, but they used just the edge of it for most of the night.

Yankee starter Gabriel “Funky Cold” Medina must have been a police detective in a previous life, because his off-speed pitches and fastballs kept the Cyclones in handcuffs.

But once Medina was pulled after his five, one-hit innings, the Cyclones broke out of those shackles.

With two outs in the home sixth, returning Cyclone legend Ender Chavez — the 26-year-old who played with the team in 2002 and 2003 and is the brother of Met star Endy Chavez — started it off with an infield single.

The next batter, Will Vogel, then executed that rarest of Single-A plays: the hit-and-run. With Chavez moving, Vogel punched Nick Chigges’s outside pitch to right field, sending Chavez scampering to third.

The next batter, J.R. Voyles, crushed a meaty fastball over the left-field wall to give the Cyclones the only offense they’d need (though the team added two insurance runs in the eighth).

After the game, everyone wanted to know what the J.R. stands for.

“It’s Jeffrey Ross,” said Voyles, the pride of Tomball, Texas, a Houston suburb.

Voyles should not have even been in the game, but replaced Zach Lutz, a fifth-round draft choice for the Mets this year, who left in the fourth inning after re-twisting his troublesome ankle.

The sight of Lutz — who is one of the Cyclones’ few hyped stars — hobbling around on crutches after the game was the only dim bulb on this otherwise flashy season opener.

“Basically, we played our game tonight,” said returning manager Edgar Alfonzo, who managed the team to its only New York-Penn League championship in the Cyclones’ inaugural 2001 season.

“We got great defense and great starting pitching.”

And the home run?

“Voyles did so great in spring training,” Alfonzo said. “He’s a real gamer.”

Voyles said he didn’t think of himself as a hero.

“Anyone could have been the guy,” he said. “We just needed one key hit to get it going. I was just lucky to put the barrel on the ball and let the wind take it.”

From the first pitch — a hard strike by Joe “The Grim” Leaper — to the last, the Cyclones appeared fired up.

Vogl’s hit and run was just one example. After working into trouble in the first inning, Leaper struck out Yankee Austin Krum and then was saved by a great stab by third-baseman Lutz to end the inning.

And in the sixth, a line shot to right field eluded the diving Chavez, who then kept his cool, picked up the ball and fired to second to gun down Dave Williams.

And in the eighth, with the Yankees threatening, returning Cyclone pitcher Grady Hinchman ended the inning with a strikeout, prompting his catcher, Yasmil Bucce, to spike the ball excitedly.

“It was just emotion,” Bucce said after the game.

But on Wednesday night, the storyline was reversed, as the Yankees dominated.

After falling behind 1–0, the Cyclones did score three in the second, thanks to a bases-loaded walk to Chavez and a two-run single by Vogl.

But Yankee fireballs treated the Cyclones’ bats like kindling the rest of the night, while Clones hurlers — starter Nick Waecher, David Koons and Dan McDonald — gave up six runs all together.

Despite the loss, the Cyclones are far ahead of last year’s pace. In 2006, the team opened up with seven consecutive losses, though they rebounded to make it to the playoffs — where they lost to the Yankees.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper