TROY — After failing to hit the ball for the first five innings, the Tri-City ValleyCats used a momentum shifting sixth inning to take down the Brooklyn Cyclones (4-1 FINAL) in the first of a three game homestand with the Met-affiliated boys from Brooklyn.
When Cyclone’s starting pitcher Thomas Szapucki came back out to pitch the 6th inning, anyone with any baseball knowledge could tell that the conditions were ripe for something to happen given his pitch count of 90.
Twelve pitches in the perfect storm hit in favor of the ValleyCats, as centerfielder Marcos Almonte scored the tying run off a Brauly Mejia double. It would be that 112th pitch that ended Szapucki’s otherwise glorious game, which featured 11 strikeouts and only that one hit on his last pitch.
New pitcher? No problem for the ValleyCats, as they would add another run before the Cyclones could stop their thrillride in the sixth. “The kids showed persistence and were eventually able to crack that nut” manager Lamarr Rogers said after the game.
After stretch time, third baseman Tyler Wolfe gave the ValleyCats an insurance run in the form of his first professional career home run, “I had a good pitch and I took advantage of it,” Wolfe said.
In the bottom of the eighth, Chuckie Robinson added to the Tri-City lead (making it 4), when he scored off a Spencer Johnson double.
The two teams will play again on Sunday in game two of this three game set, first pitch scheduled to leave the glove at 5:00pm.
