In the end, it was definitely worth the wait.
After an hour-and-a-half rain delay, Luz Portobanco threw five innings of one-run ball and Angel Pagan went 3-3, scored once and drove in a run to lead the Cyclones to a 3-1 victory over the Staten Island Yankees at rain-soaked Richmond County Bank Ballpark Tuesday night.
But in the beginning, it didn’t look like the game would ever be played.
“I saw the storm coming, and I stopped warming up.” Portobanco said after the game. “I was like, ‘Here we go again,’ but I knew we’d get the game in once it stopped. These fields drain really well.”
The Clones and Yankees game Monday night was rained out in the bottom of the fourth inning with the scored tied at one when a similar storm moved in over Keyspan Park.
That game will be picked up on Friday as part of a shortened double-header. (See story below).
But Tuesday night’s storm — which pushed the game’s first pitch back to 9:10 pm from 7:30 pm — couldn’t stop Portobanco (5-2) from earning his third win over the Yankees this season.
“Each time I’ve pitched to them, I changed my style,” said the crafty righty, who features a fastball, change-up and slow curve. “This time, I used mostly fastballs.”
That almost didn’t work.
In the first inning, Portobanco got into immediate trouble, walking the first two batters he faced.
After striking out John-Ford Griffin, Portobanco loaded the bases by walking Shelly Duncan.
“I was a bit pumped up in the first, and that got me into a bit of trouble,” he said. “So I went to my change-up to slow myself down.”
That worked, as Portobanco struck out Jason Turner and got Juan Comacho to pop to third to end the inning.
But Portobanco switched back to fastballs the rest of the way, he said.
“I saw they were looking for off-speed pitches, so I was crossing them up with the fastball,” he said.
While the Cyclones were able to score a run in the first inning — when David Bacani singled to drive in Pagan who had singled and stole second to open the game — the team could do little else with the 13 hits they collected on the night.
All told, the Cyclones left 13 runners on base — twice leaving the bases loaded — but that didn’t upset the team whose hitting leads the New York-Penn League.
“That’s just baseball,” said Clones first baseman Jay Caligiuri, who popped out with the bases juiced in the sixth. “ You have to give credit to their pitcher. He made the big pitches when he had to. We scored when we could, but he got us out in the big moments. To be a championship team — and I think we are — you have to get those big hits. We didn’t get them tonight.”
And when that happens, you have to rely on your pitching to get the job done.
After Portobanco left with a runner on in the top of the sixth, Blake McKinley, who allowed that inherited runner to cross the plate, settled down to pitch two scoreless innings. Closer David Byard then had a 1-2-3- ninth to earn the save.
“Give the credit for this win to our pitchers,” Caligiuri said. “Porto was great, Blake was great. And Byard, well, he’s unhittable.”
