Iron Birds 5, Clones 2

Julian HIlario was scheduled to start today’s game against the Aberdeen IronBirds, but due to a late scratch Matt Koch started the game in his first professional appearance. He only lasted 1.2 innings, giving up three runs. The Cyclones lost by a score of 5-2.

Koch, the Mets third round pick in the 2012 draft, was off to a good start striking out the first batter he faced. He would retire the IronBirds in order in the first, but a leadoff walk to Torsten Boss in the second seemed to make him nervous. Boss walked on five pitches, followed by a four-pitch walk to Joel Hutter; and hitting Lucas Herbst set the IronBirds up for a big inning.

Doug Bream came to the plate with the bases loaded and nobody out. He hit a weak ground ball to Evans and was thrown out at first, but Boss crossed the plate. With runners on second and third, Sam Kimmel hit a sacrifice fly to Eudy Pina that scored Hutter and moved Herbst to third. Anthony Vega joined the RBI parade, hitting a bloop single to center field. Beck Wheeler then came in with two outs and was able to get the last out of the inning, but not before the Cyclones were facing a 3-0 deficit.

The Cyclones would not be held off the scoreboard for long though, as they would chip away in the third inning plating one runner. With one out, Juan Gamboa ripped a single up the middle followed up by a Dimas Ponce single. On Ponce’s single the IronBirds left fielder Will Howard made an error allowing the ball to get to the wall, sending Gamboa home and Ponce advanced to third. The offense wasn’t able to bring Ponce home from third with one out, but the score was now 3-1 in favor of the IronBirds.

Coming out for his second inning of work out of the bullpen, Hilario was unable to keep the score at 3-1. Herbst stepped to the plate as the leadoff man and was hit by a pitch on his hip. Bream stepped to the plate and hit a double down the right field line, scoring Herbst, and giving him two RBIs on the day. The next batter was Kimmel and the pitch also hit him after he squared to bunt. After stealing second base and moving to third on a throwing error by Nelfi Zapata, it seemed as though the IronBirds were going to score again. Hilario composed himself however and struck out Anthony and Vega. Will Howard then flew out to left ending the inning.

After the IronBirds tacked on another run to make the score 5-1, the Cyclones struck right back in the bottom of the fifth. After back-to-back walks to Phillip Evans and Cole Frenzel, Nelfi Zapata hit a ground ball single through the left side scoring Evans and moving Frenzel to third. Jorge Rivero then stepped to the plate and grounded into a double play ending the inning, but not before the Cyclones lessoned the IronBirds’ lead.

The scoring in this game was done after the fifth inning as both teams combined for only six hits through the last four innings of play.