John From Albany - Brooklyn wins 2-1, leads best of three NY Penn Championship series 1-0.

Brooklyn Cyclones 2 Lowell Spinners 1 (box).

For the first time since 2010, Brooklyn is in the NY Penn League Championship series.  

They got here with terrific pitching and the ability to manufacture runs.  Outside of recent call ups Brett Baty and Matthew Allen, Brooklyn is not a team with many top 20 Mets prospects. 

The Lowell Spinners on the other hand are different.  According to Sox Prospects.com, 10 of the Red Sox top 20 prospects are on the Lowell roster.  Four of these, CF Gilberto Jimenez, Right Fielder Nick Decker, 2B Cameron Cannon, and SS Antoni Flores were in the starting lineup. 

PC - John Canary

Sunday Brooklyn Ace Garrison Bryant took the mound looking to rebound from his start last week against Staten Island.  Last Sunday, Garrison went 5 innings, allowing 7 hits, 1 walk, 4 runs, 3 earned. 

This game was much better.  Garrison threw 6 shut-out innings allowing just one hit and three walks.

Garrison’s only tough inning was the sixth.  After two outs and two walks, hot Lowell hitter, Joe Davis, looked to have a base hit but Antoine Duplantis made a diving catch to end the inning. 

The Brooklyn offense was also held in check.  After former Met Jay Bell’s son, Brock Bell, pitched the first two innings, Lowell lefty Jorge Rodriguez, a 19-year-old from Mexico, threw five superb innings allowing just one hit and one walk.  The most offense Brooklyn was able to mount against Rodriguez was an epic 16 pitch at-bat in the sixth inning by Wilmer Reyes that Rodriguez was able to win by striking Reyes out on a foul tip.

Jared Biddy came in next from Brooklyn.  Jared,  another great undrafted free agent that the Mets picked up this year, had a tremendous 2019 professional year.  In 18 games and 31.1 innings between Columbia, Kingsport, and Brooklyn, Jared went 4-0 with 3 BBs, 35K’s and a 0.86 ERA. 

Jared threw two innings Sunday with no hits and one walk. 

After the seventh, Lowell replaced Rodriguez with Tom Windle, a former 2013 second round pick from the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Windle who had pitched in AAA earlier this year for the Phillies, made three earlier appearances for Lowell without allowing a run.

Brett Baty opened the eighth with his second hit of the day, an opposite single to left field.

Friday’s hero, Ranfy Adon, then doubled, and the Cyclones had second and third with no out.

Tim McCarver used to say that good teams score a lot of runs on outs and the Cyclones did just that.  Jose Peroza’s sacrifice fly scored Baty with Adon taking third and Antoine Duplantis’ sacrifice fly scored Adon.  Cyclones 2 – Spinners 0.

And so it went to the bottom of the ninth.  Matt Mullenbach, another undrafted free agent that has been great all year for the Cyclones but struggled with two blown saves at the end of the year came on to pitch.  Ground out, walk, fly out, another walk and Fonzie was not taking any more chanes.

Fronzie brought in recent Kingsport callup, Reyson Santos to get the final out.  Lowell third basemen, Nicholas Northcut, singled to left field and it was Brooklyn 2 – Lowell 1. 

Nail biting time in overdrive. 

After falling behind in the count 2-0, Santos induced Lowell pinch hitter Roldani Baldwin to ground into a force play, Reyes to Ritter, and Brooklyn game away with a hard fought road win.

Brooklyn just needs one more win for the NY Penn League championship.  The next two games will be in Brooklyn, 6:30 Monday and 6;30 Tuesday.  24-year-old West Islip, NY native, Frank Valentino, coming off 5.1, one-run innings against Staten Island, gets the start Monday for Brooklyn.