17-Ks for B-Mets Pitchers

Four Binghamton Mets pitchers racked up a season-high 17 strikeouts,including eleven from Zack Wheeler, in a 3-2 win over the Harrisburg Senatorson Tuesday night at NYSEG Stadium. The win was Binghamton’s sixth in the lasteight games.

Enteringthe game after two difficult performances on the road, Wheeler delivered asolid bounce-back performance against the Senators. The righty allowed just tworuns on four hits while striking out eleven, a season-high. The total was oneshy of a career-high, set last year with the San Jose Giants.

TheB-Mets cracked the scoreboard in the first against starter Danny Rosenbaum (7-8)on a lucky bounce. With Wilmer Flores at first, Jefry Marte zipped a groundballdown the third base line that bounced off the tarp and ricocheted back intoleft field, allowing Flores to score the game’s first run.

Harrisburganswered back with two straight runs, getting on the board in the second. ZachWalters led off with a double, took third on a single and came home on SeanNicol’s sac fly. Tim Pahuta gave Harrisburg a brief lead by squeezing a solohomer over the left field wall in the fourth. It was just the second home runallowed by Wheeler this season.

Binghamtonresponded with a run in the fourth. The B-Mets cracked three hits to start theinning, but a baserunning mistake by Jefry Marte forced Wilmer Flores to get thrownout at home. Francisco Pena made up for the miscue with a game-tying, RBIgroundout to third.

TheB-Mets took the lead for good in the sixth. Wilmer Flores started with a walkand took second on a groundout. After Dustin Martin bounced out to the moundfor the second out, Pena sent a high chopper to second. Jose Lozada attemptedto field the in-between hop, but the ball squirted under his glove. The errorallowed Flores to score from second.

Giventhe lead, Wheeler (10-6) capped his night with two more strikeouts in theseventh. The righty fanned the final four batters he faced before giving way toC.J. Nitkowski.

Pinch-hitterJonathan Tucker greeted the lefty by launching a long fly ball to left, but wasrobbed of a hit by Pedro Zapata who made a running catch on the warning trackto end the inning. Frank Francisco took over in the eighth and breezed throughthe top of the order, needing just eleven pitches to strike out the side.

Afterthe B-Mets failed to score in two innings against reliever Brian Broderick,Adam Kolarek entered in the ninth. The lefty struck out the first two batters beforesurrendering consecutive singles. With the tying run on second, Kolarek lockeddown his first Double-A save by striking out Lozada.

The17 strikeouts are the most collected by the B-Mets since they struck out 19 ina 14-inning game against the Harrisburg Senators on July 28, 2011. The totalwas one shy of a franchise record for a nine-inning game set against the NewHaven Ravens on April 10, 1995.