Cyclones 8
Tri-City 3
June 21 at MCU Park
The Cyclones only scored four runs in the first four games of the season — and were no-hit! — but the Cardiac Kids doubled that output last night, defeating the ValleyCats 8–3 and bringing a smile to the face of manager Tom Gamboa — as well as a sigh of relief.
“Each day I look at the scores of the other teams when I get the stats and I laugh when I see 9–2, 7–1, 4–1, normal baseball games,” the Gamby-man said.
The ValleyCats jumped out to a first-inning lead. Stephen Wrenn tripled and scored on Marcos Almonte’s groundout to short. Randy Cesar homered off Erik Manoah in the second and Ronnie Dawson hit one out in the third to give Tri-City a 3–0 lead.
Brooklyn battled back in the fourth as Sebastian Kassay walked the first two hitters. Then catcher Dan Rizzie hit a grounder to short which Almonte threw to second, but not in time to get Colby Woodmansee.
With the bases loaded, Gene Cone drove in all three runs with a double to right.
Manoah settled down to pitch a pair of scoreless innings and left giving up three runs in five innings.
Raul Jacobson entered the game and struggled with his control, plunking two ValleyCats and giving up a single to load the bases with two outs. Jacobson got Kolbey Carpenter to groundout to Woodmansee at short who flipped it to Nick Sergakis to get out of the jam.
The Cyclones loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh for Woodmansee. After fouling off a pitch, Woodmansee held off on a close pitch which was outside. On a 2–2 pitch, Woodmansee singled off Framber Valdez to give Brooklyn a 5–3 lead.
“I was down and he threw me a good curveball and I fouled it off, I did what I needed to do with that,” said Woodmansee recounting the at-bat. “He tried to come back with it again and missed it. He shook off the next pitch and when I hit I knew he was going to try to blow it by me, so I knew a fastball’s coming in my head and I sat on it and drove it.”
The fun continued as Rizzie doubled down the line in left to score Darryl Knight. When Dawson misplayed the ball in left, Woodmansee scored to make it 7–3. Then Cone hit a grounder to second which was mishandled by Rodrigo Ayarza as Rizzie scored to give Brooklyn an 8–3 lead.
Jacobsen held the lead and picked up the win, pitching the final four innings for the Cyclones.
The 2–3 Cyclones travel to Connecticut to play the Tigers at 7:05 pm.
UPS AND DOWNS
The Mets signed first-round draft pick Justin Dunn and third-round pick Blake Tiberi. Both will play for the Cyclones. Dunn is a right-handed pitcher from Boston College who made 18 appearances, including eight starts, going 4–2 with a 2.06 ERA. Tiberi, a third baseman, hit .340, scored 47 runs and drove in 51 runs in 64 games with Louisville.
