Albany Dutchmen beat Amsterdam in wild game

AMSTERDAM — As Thursday’s game at Shuttleworth Park ended, Albany Dutchmen manager Nick Davey let out a long sigh of relief. An ugly, wild, long, crazy game had finally come to an end, and his team had come out of it with a 12-10 win.

“Crazy. One of the craziest games I’ve been a part of all-around,” he said.

By the bottom of the seventh inning, it seemed as though his team had an easy win in the bag, leading the Amsterdam Mohawks 8-3, and was nine outs away from getting a game back in the standings, ready to trim the gap to half of a game behind Amsterdam in the divisional race.

Not so fast, Amsterdam said.

The bases were quickly loaded for Amsterdam’s Jake Hammon, who singled to make it 8-4, and the comeback was on. After it was all said and done, three Amsterdam hitters drove in runs, the team scored six in the inning, sending 12 batters to the plate and taking a 9-8 lead.

However, Albany was not about to let this one slip away. They scored two runs in the top of the eighth inning as Griffin Herrera was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and later Jerry Huntzinger delivering an RBI single, and Albany now led 10-9.

Amsterdam tied it at 10 in the bottom half of the frame on a sacrifice fly from Cole Barr, sending it to the final inning tied up. 

Nick Estrella was the one who played hero for Albany in the ninth. With two outs, he came up with a huge single to score Lucas Dunn to make it 11-10, and he later scored on a wild pitch to plate Albany’s final run of the night. 

“Nothing’s ever safe here. That team’s the best offensive team in the league. If we threw strikes I knew we had a chance but our guys weren’t competing in the strike zone so it was just a matter of getting somebody out there that can stop the bleeding for us, and we did enough offensively to take the lead and then make a couple plays,” Davey said.

The Mohawks got a runner on base to start the bottom of the ninth, but was retired in a controversial double play for the first and second outs. That led to the ejection of Amsterdam manager Keith Griffin, leaving no more coaches on the bench for the team as him and all three of his assistant coaches had been ejected at various points in the game. Two pitches later Elvis Peralta Jr. popped out to end the four hour, six minute marathon.

“I’m happy with the way our guys responded after giving up six in that inning and then taking the lead. We could’ve definitely packed it in and we didn’t so I’m proud of our guys in that way. But, we got to play better baseball,” Davey said.

The Dutchmen are now 17-13, the Mohawks 19-14, with Amsterdam leading the East Division by just half of a game. Both teams have Friday off, but will actually play each other again on Saturday at Siena Field in Loudonville, a home game for Albany. First pitch is set for 5:05 p.m.