Our Boys of Summer are off to a hot start, leading the McNamara Division of the New York Penn-League and last week sweeping the Williamsport Crosscutters, who came into Coney Island with a 13–1 record.
Some of the faces have changed early on — Mets brass sent Michael Katz and Nata Ramos to Savannah and Michael Gibbons to Binghamton, traded Gaither Bumgardner to the Angels — but Cyclones manager Tom Gamboa addressed his squad to make sure their focus was on the players who are still in Brooklyn, not on those who have left.
“‘Gosh, we had such a good team, now they took away Katz and now we’re losing Gibbons,’” said Gamboa, imagining what his charges might have whispered in the back of the van back to the hotel, had he not set the record straight. “The moment that you even start to think that way, it becomes an excuse for losing. The very sentence connotes we were good, but we’re not now because we’re losing pieces.”
Gamboa told his players that they should be happy to see teammates being promoted.
“It’s about development and you should all be glad, as I am, when Katz or Gibbons go up, because that proves to you that the Mets are not here to hold people back,” he said. “When people perform, they want you to move up. They don’t get a return on their investment until you play in the big leagues.”
Fast ball
The Cyclones are fan-friendly with their promotions — the team revived its breakout hit “Seinfeld” night on June 5, to great success — and early in the season they’ve been pleasing fans by playing quick games as well. And you can thank the team’s pitching staff, which has been consistently throwing strikes.
The Clones’ Fourth of July game lasted two hours and 12 minutes with Matt Blackham striking out nine, giving up two hits and walking only one batter in seven innings. He’s smaller than the prototypical pitcher, but Gamboa likes his development and praised pitching coach Dave LaRoche.
“I think it’s a credit to him and to Dave LaRoche how fast his control has progressed because he wasn’t all like this in extended spring training,” Gamboa said after Blackham’s performance on Saturday. “I saw him have some decent outings in terms of results but I never liked any of his outings until the end.”
Gamboa said he previously thought of Blackham as “wild within the strike zone.”
“I told him ‘real baseball starts at Double-A. These balls that you throw at guys’ chins, that these kids in extended spring are swinging at, you get into higher baseball and it’s going to be ball four, ball four, then you’re going to get behind the next guy and he’s going to whack a double off the wall.’ ”
Blackham is 2–0 in three starts with a 1.45 earned run average. The righty pitcher said his lessons with the Cyclones skipper helped him improve.
“Gamboa, during spring training, taught me a lot about baseball and how batters react to your pitches and if they’re falling forward or staying back or up on the plate or off the plate, all those things,” Blackham said. “Gamboa is one of the most intelligent coaches I’ve ever been around.”
