Cyclones 7
Yankees 4
Sept. 4 at MCU Park
The Cyclones ended the regular season with a sweep of the best team in the league — a perfect preparation for the playoff showdown with the very same Staten Island Yankees that begins at MCU Park on Tuesday night.
The hard-to-hold Yankees got on the board first with three runs in their first at-bat against starter Carlos Vasquez, who lasted all of two innings.
But after that it was all (well, mostly all) Cyclones.
In the home first, Richard Lucas drove in a run on a two-out single.
And in the bottom of the third, another run scored on Lucas’s 19th double of the season.
The Yankees made the score 4–2 on a solo shot, ending their offense for the night. But the Cyclones kept on scoring, putting up four in the home fourth. Brandon Brown and Xorge Carrillo led off with singles before Daniel Muno drove in a run with a single. Back to back wild pitch scored two more runs before Javier Rodriguez knocked in the final run on a sacrifice fly.
One more run scored on Travis Taijeron’s homer in the eighth.
The Cyclone bullpen yielded just four hits over the last six innings, striking out nine Yankees.
The game was significant not only for the win, which ended the season with the 45-29 Cyclones just one-half game between the Yankees.
In addition, Muno broke Darrell Ceciliani’s single-season batting average record, ending the year at .355, four-hundredths better than last year’s performance by Ceciliani.
The Cyclones open the playoffs against the Staten Island Yankees at MCU Park [1904 Surf Ave. at W. 17th Street in Coney Island, (718) 449-8497] on Tuesday at 7 pm. For info, visit www.brooklyncyclones.com.
