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Mets Minors Recap: Rumble Ponies Walk-Off

By Jack Ramsey

April 26, 2018 No comments

Peter Alonso/Photo by Ed Delany

A relatively interesting day for the Mets system saw a come-from-behind win for Binghamton and the continued great start for Nabil Crismatt. St. Lucie suffered “one of those nights”, and Columbia competed in a nail biter with Charleston until the end. While Las Vegas got a rare shutout.

Las Vegas (6-14) 7, Albuquerque (8-12) 0  Box Score

It was a quiet night for the offense for most of the game, with just a Brentz RBI double in the first. But they broke out in the eighth with homers from Borenstein and Kelly, both of whom have been killing the ball in Triple-A this year. It’s early, but Cecchini seems to be hitting much more like the player he was from 2015-2016. Smith, another player trying to get back to the Majors, has cooled off a bit but has still posted strong numbers overall.

  • LHP P.J. Conlon (W, 1-1, 6.63 ERA): 6.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 3 K
  • LHP Matt Purke (0-0, 8.00 ERA): 0.2 IP, 2 H
  • RHP Drew Smith (1-0, 7.04 ERA): 1.2 IP, H, 0 R, 2 K

Conlon had struggled in Vegas thus far, which is not surprising for someone who pitches to contact down there. But he rebounded in a big way last night, using his deceptive delivery and aggressiveness to work through 6.2 scoreless innings. Purke has also been a little better as of late, but has still not built his way out of the hole he dug himself into at the beginning of the year, with that ugly 8.00 ERA still withstanding. The hard-throwing righty Smith has made five appearances for the 51s now and has pitched well in all of them outside of one disaster outing.

Binghamton (8-9) 5, New Hampshire (12-6) 4 Box Score

At the moment, it seems no one in the Eastern League can stop Peter Alonso. He picked up his fourth home run of the campaign, knocking in his eleventh and he currently leads the Eastern League with his 1.157 OPS.  Tebow kept up with his recent surge at the plate, getting on twice. His OBP is now up to .333, a very respectable number. Tyler Moore drove in his first run of the year. Matt Oberste walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to score Champ Stuart as the walk-off run.

Crismatt is off to arguably the best start of pitcher in the Mets minor leagues. He continues to impress, as he threw six quality innings on Wednesday for the Ponies against far-and-away the best lineup (led league with .753 OPS, 50 points higher than No.2) in the Eastern League. The only two hits he allowed were to top prospect Vlad Guerrero Jr. His 27 strikeouts are tops on the team, and set him up for a K/9 of 11. Austin McGeorgerecorded four outs in relief, recording two strikeouts. Joshua Torres blew the save in the top of the ninth.

Ian Strom, Photo By Ernest Dove

St. Lucie (9-10) 4, Charlotte (10-10) 11 Box Score

Strom kept up with his hot start, upping his average to .327, tops on the team. He was also coughs stealing for the second time this year. Luis Carpio and Desmond Lindsay combined to go 0-9 with seven strikeouts on the night.

The Mets’ pitching got shellacked by the Stone Crabs, giving up eleven runs, eight of them being earned. Llanes took one for the team, giving up six runs over five innings. McIlraith threw gasoline on the fire, giving up five of his own. Adam Atkins was impressive, striking out five over two hitless innings in relief. They struck out twelve in total.

Columbia (12-8) 6, Charleston (9-11) 5 Box Score

Brodey and Vasquez accounted for all of the RBIs for the ‘Flies, with each collecting an extra base hit. Vasquez continues to impress with a hot start and hitting a shade under .350 to begin the campaign. Vasquez has now reached base safely in a team record 19 straight games.

Rentería didn’t serve up the worlds greatest start, but was just good enough to keep the Fireflies in the game. All three of his runs were earned. He was followed by Aaron Ford, who threw two great innings in relief, still yet to surrender a run. Cobb was called on for the save in the 10th as this game went to extras. He would load the bases in the ninth, only to retire three in a row to end the game and collect his team leading third save. He continues to be a bright spot out of the back-end of the pen for the Fireflies.

The Las Vegas 51s portion of the recap was done by Mojo Hill.