COLUMBIA, SC – Edgardo Fermin collected his fourth three-hit game of the season on Thursday night. Columbia dropped the series opener to Lakewood 8-1 at Spirit Communications Park. The club is back home on Friday night and Braves legend Dale Murphy will be recognized during the game.
Columbia’s (0-1, 34-34) lone run occurred in the sixth inning. Blake Tiberi led off with a single into left field. Two batters later, Jeremy Vasquez recorded his team-leading 14th double of the season and the home team had runners at second and third base. Matt Winaker drove in Tiberi with a sacrifice fly.
Lakewood (1-0, 42-28) jumped on starting pitcher Anthony Kay (L, 3-4) from the beginning. The visitors pushed four runs across in the first inning and ultimately knocked Kay out of the game after just four innings. The southpaw allowed nine hits, yielded five runs, and registered five strikeouts during that span.
Taylor Henry and Conner O’Neil each tossed a scoreless frame out of the bullpen for the Fireflies. Henry struck out two batters when called on in the eighth inning. O’Neil fanned one batter in the ninth.
Rodolfo Duran was the story for the BlueClaws on offense. The 20-year-old finished a single shy of the cycle. He tripled in the third, doubled in the fifth, homered in the seventh, but flew out in the ninth.
3 comments:
Anthony Kay struggling more than I would like to see.
Free Ire
I am a huge Brandon Nimmo fan as everyone here must already realize. Before Brandon, I was a huge fan of Daniel Murphy and still am. He just came back to the Nats and is readjusting his game after his knee injury. I followed both these two players from the moment they hit Double A ball and could see their progress being made.
Each player is totally different really and will develop always on their own watch so to speak, and for reasons. Their arrival dates will vary one player to another, and their skill levels getting here will vary as well.
Most players with very good skill levels (like these two have) will continue to always be developing after becoming major leaguers. I concur with you that on this team right now Brandon Nimmo, Michael Conforto, Dominic Smith, Amed Rosario, Kevin Plawecki (two more hits last night people), and soon too Peter Alonso and Jeff McNeil all continue their development once up as NY Mets. They are all this good and talented. That's why it is so important for all of us NY Mets fans to be patient while this is going on. Count this new core of talented players being intelligently assembled here now, SEVEN!
Has this sort of large scale developmental sequence including seven players ever happened here to these NY Mets before in their history? A: No. Not even close. Mid 1980's era there was Gooden, Strawberry, Mitchell, and Orosco. But that's as close to this as the Mets can come really, to the best of my own recollection.
So basically here, this franchise is in almost unchartered waters with so many developing players all at one time. But isn't it something really good to see finally happening now Mets fans? It's been long overdue I think. Here and now, GM Alderson is making this all happen through the developmental plan that he has always had.
It's actually not a rebuild of any kind, but rather development of key Mets minor league players, plus a tweaking process that will make this a much better team than ever before, all predominantly done from within this organization and drafting the right players.
Observation from Last Night:
1. Batting - If you are mired in a hitless streak or slump, or your team only needs you to get on base, do not swing like a wild man Banchi out there going for a homerun into the next state over from the ballpark. Instead, swing smart, look for "your pitch" early on in the count, swing level, and swing only for a line drive basehit over the heads of the infielders or thru an infield gap. Many times usually later in games, I have seen the Mets down one or two runs and the leadoff batter is immediately trying to hit the ball out of the stratosphere, when all that is really needed of him (with no one out) is to get on base and start a Mets rally.
2. Every batter writes his own "Book" on how to be pitched to himself, by swinging and missing at certain types of pitches that are nearly impossible for that batter to hit, although he always swings at it anyways and is struck out. So what to do here? Get smarter and better. If the pitch is low/outside and out of the strikezone (even for a gorilla) then learn not to offer at it. If the pitch is a rising fastball high and out of the strikezone, samething, and don't offer at it. I have seen Mets hitters literally strike themselves out by swinging at non-strike pitches that are unhittable more than one time.
3. Players who switch from infield to outfield and visa versa. The game is totally changed and will take a decent amount of time to properly adjust to this new situation. The infield game is all on the ground really, while the outfield game is basically all up in the air. It's a pretty big adjustment for this reason, but one that can almost always be made with some effort made.
The laws of defense still apply at both the infield or outfield positions. Before every pitch, a player has to assess where to go with the ball if the ball is hit to them either in the air or on the ground. It's basic, everyday planning ahead really. So when the ball is hit to that player, they already have decided exactly what to do with the ball once they get it to make an out or hold runners to a base so they do not score. Don't get caught napping is a good way to look at it. Otherwise a player could get made into Soylent Green, right Mack?
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