Tri-City 7, Clones 4

The Cyclones lost a heart breaker on Wednesday evening, falling to Tri-City by the score of 7-4. The ValleyCats scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth off of the Brooklyn bullpen as the Cyclones lost for the fourth time in five games against Tri-City.


For the second night in a row, the Cyclones found themselves in an early hole after Neiko Johnson, the first batter up for the ValleyCats, connected on a leadoff home run and Tri-City had a 1-0 edge. The lead grew an inning later after a pair of hits and a sacrifice fly pushed a run across to make it 2-0 heading into the third.



But after the early offensive onslaught, Cyclones starter Carlos Vazquez settled down and gave Brooklyn a chance to claw their way back into the game, and that’s exactly what they would do. After a scoreless third and fourth frames, Tillman Pugh led off the top of the fifth with a solo blast to get Brooklyn on the scoreboard and trim the score to 2-1. The Cyclones would draw even later in the inning when a throwing error by ValleyCats first baseman Rafael Valenzuela allowed Brandon Brown to come all the way around from first base and knot the score at 2-2.



That is how it stayed until the top of the seventh when Brooklyn took the lead for the first time. Danny Muno worked a walk and advance to second on a balk from ValleyCats pitcher Mitchell Lambson. With Muno now in scoring position, Charley Thurber laced a single up the middle to push the go-ahead run across and give Brooklyn a 3-2 edge. Thurber moved himself into scoring position following a wild pitch and would come around to score on Richard Lucas’s two-out RBI single to pus the Cyclones lead to 4-2.



But in the bottom of the eighth, the ValleyCats rallied off of the Cyclones bullpen to take the lead for good, with the big blow coming by way of a grand slam home run from Jacke Healey as they jumped in front for good by the score of 7-4. Todd Weldon (4-1) suffered the loss in relief, but it was Jeremy Gould who surrendered Healey’s home run.