K-Mets Drop Season Opener 8-4 To Danville
Kingsport,TN
Minor league baseball returned to Kingsport with a bang Thursday evening. Unfortunately it was the visiting team who started things off with the bang. Danville scored 7 runs in the first two innings off of SP Christian Montgomery, who was pulled after 1.1 innings. In his 1.1 innings, Montgomery gave up 7 runs (6 earned), 5 walks, and 5 hits.
For the remaining 7 innings though the Kingsport Mets played brilliantly. Relief pitchers Arias and Estevez struck out 8 Braves over the last 7 innings and only gave up 3 additional hits and 1 run.
Ivan Wilson led the offense tonight going 2/4 with a double and solo homer and driving in 2. He was the only Met player to have a multi-hit night. LF Vicente Lupe, 2B Branden Kaupe and DH Brandon Brosher struggled at the plate going a combined 0/11 (7Ks). 2013 returnee 1B Zach Mathieu went 1/3 and also drove in a run.
48% of our outs tonight were by the way of the strikeout.
Still, take away the bad outing by Montgomery and we would have probably pulled this one out. If the last 7 innings are a picture of things to come then the K-Mets 2014 outlook is promising.
Game 2 of the series against Danville is set for Friday night.
Worth Noting: Unlucky Start? - The Kingsport Mets have lost the opening game of the season for 4 straight years now. This was the 68th meeting between Danville and Kingsport since 2003. During that span the Mets are (18-18) at home against the Braves. Matt Kimbrel, brother of Atlanta's closer Craig Kimbrel, earned the win tonight in relief. 1,603 fans turned out for opening night.
From an old post here...what are your thoughts?
ReplyDelete8-15-11: - Montgomery signed with the Mets for a $250,000 bonus in the last hour of the last day allowed for draft picks to be signed.
#44 – P Christian Montgomery – Montgomery was consistently placed in the first round of all the early mock drafts last June through August. Andy Seiler had him as the 27th overall pick. Sully Draft had him 33rd. The scouting reports had him in the 94-95 range coming out of his junior year in high school. He led the USA 18U team to victory and more mocks posted him: MLBProspects: 28th… Pat Hickey: 38th. Then, something happened. He lost his velo and was eventually shut down. The Mets found him still around in the 11th round, did their due diligence, and signed him on the last day for a $250,000 bonus. Could be either the dark horse of the draft or the second coming of Nathan Vineyard.. I have him doing baby steps next spring in Kingsport. ETA: TBD
Nice find, Frank.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I followed Montgomery through all this... arm just went dead... then the drug suspension... and now (and the end of last year) all this...
I have to assume he pitched well in camp Otherwise he wouldn't have got the opening game nod.
Sad. Tons of high school talent put it points out the risk when you draft "high risk, high reward".