Tri-City 10
Cyclones 9
June 20 at MCU Park
The Cyclones lose but they don’t go down easily. The Marathon Mets lost 10–9 in 17 innings to Tri-City on Monday night at MCU Park. The game took six hours and five minutes to complete and finished just ahead of the New York-Penn League curfew.
Brooklyn has played 56 innings in its first four games.
“This just might be one of these kind of years where this just keeps happening,” manager Tom Gamboa said.
A run-scoring single from Hengelbert Rojas gave Brooklyn a second inning lead on Michael Conforto bobblehead night.
The ValleyCats scored twice in the third off Cyclones starter Joel Huertas, but Brooklyn’s bats answered right back as a from Jacob Zanon tied the game at two.
The game remained tied until the sixth inning when Carmen Benedetti laced a two-run double to left off Huertas to give Tri-City a 4–2 lead.
The resilient Cyclones rallied in the bottom of the frame. Rojas delivered another run-scoring single and Enmanuel Zabala tied the game with a single of his own. Then Nick Sergakis gave Brooklyn a 5–4 lead with a double.
Gamboa went to his bag of tricks as Dan Rizzie stole home on the back end of a double steal.
Tri-City third baseman Kolbey Carpenter drew a walk against Nicco Blank to lead off the seventh inning and scored on a Stephen Wrenn sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 6-5.
Nabil Crismatt made his Cyclones debut when he came on to pitch the eighth inning, but walked Taylor Jones to lead off the frame. After a pair of strikeouts, Tri-City catcher Jake Rogers drove in Jones with a game-tying double.
The bullpens dominated as the Cyclones played their second game of over five-and-a-half hours. In the bottom of the 13th, Brooklyn shortstop Dale Burdick came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs, but grounded out to Tri-City pitcher Carlos Sierra. Sierra was the unsung hero of the game, pitching six shutout innings of one-hit ball.
As the game entered the 16th inning, Gamboa called on infielder Santo Marte to pitch. Marte pitched a scoreless inning to start, but fell apart in the 17th.
With runners on second and third and two outs, Daz Cameron, son of former Met outfielder Mike Cameron, broke the tie with a two-run single. It was redemption for Cameron who had struck out five times in the game. Wrenn followed with a two-run blast to give the Valley Cats a seemingly insurmountable 10–6 lead.
Three consecutive Cyclones singles off Luis Ramirez, however, cut the lead to 10–7 in the bottom of the inning. Rojas grounded back to the pitcher, but Ramirez stumbled and made a wild throw to first as the error cut the lead to 10–8. With runners on first and third with one out, Zabala hit a grounder to short which scored a run.
Tri-City intentionally walked Zanon to pitch to Brandon Brosher who had already struck out twice and reached on an error although he entered the game in the 13th inning. He took a 1-2 pitch down the middle to end the game. It’s been a tough start of the season for the catcher who struck out swinging on a pitch out of the zone with the bases loaded in the eighth inning on Friday night.
“From the day we signed Brandon, if you look at his stats, the biggest problem is lack of contact,” Gamboa said. “He’s a big, strong kid, he’s got power, he’s got arm strength. We’ve converted him to catcher and he’s making the transition nicely but he’s having a very difficult time with the bat, and particularly making contact.”
The 1–3 Cyclones host Tri-City tonight at 7 pm as Brooklyn looks for another win in the three-game series.
