The baseball was not bouncing the right way on Wednesday for the ValleyCats.
After getting rained out on Tuesday night, Tri-City played the first 2 games of the 3 game set against the Williamsport Crosscutters on Wednesday afternoon and into the evening. Things did not go well right from the start.
Game 1 starting pitcher Brett Adcock only threw 2 pitches, both of them for hits, before exiting the game with an apparent hamstring injury. No official word from the team on the severity. As a result, Williamsport would go on to score 2 in the 1st, as both of those runs went down as earned for Adcock. A strong bullpen effort led primarily by Kevin Hill limited the Cutters scoring for 2 innings. Tri-City was able to gain the lead in that short frame scoring 3 runs off of Alex DeGoti and Carmen Benedetti hits.
Both teams got a run in the 4th, courtesy of a Stephen Wrenn solo homer for the ValleyCats. Things fell apart in the 5th, though. Back-to-back hits for Williamsport provided 3 runs in the inning. Another RBI single in the 6th and the Cutters extended their lead to 7-4. Henri Lartigue was the key player of the game for Williamsport. He drove in 3 runs on 2 hits. Not a bad day for the catcher. Despite another homer from Stephen Wrenn, it wasn’t enough. The ValleyCats dropped game 1, 8-5.
Things did not get off to the best start in game 2, either. Williamsport tallied up 6 runs in the first 3 innings. And with each doubleheader game being only 7 innings long, a comeback needed to be timely. Seranthony Dominguez went 5 innings while only giving up 1 hit and no earned runs for the Cutters. He ended up getting the win, as the bullpen closed it out from there. Tri-City finished with 3 runs on just 2 hits.
Williamsport was able to use the long ball to their advantage, with solo homers coming from Darick Hall and Luke Maglich. They won the game by a final score of 7-3 and will look to sweep the series tomorrow.
The ValleyCats are no strangers to the big fly themselves; they are the only team in the league with double-digit home-runs. But if they want to compete for a title this season, the pitching needs to improve. And today was a great example of that. The ‘Cats are now 5-8 on the season. And despite coming off a series victory at Lowell, they need to consistently start winning if they want to catch up.
