Mark down the date. July 22, 2015. That’s the day the Binghamton Mets finally eked their way into first place of the Eastern League’s Eastern Division. Binghamton continued their winning ways sweeping New Britain in the Rock Cats home park, 9-5, to move ten games over .500 and one-half game ahead of second place Reading.
The win was Binghamton’s sixth straight and 12 in their last 14 games. Now the B-Mets task will be to stay there.
Another sterling pitching performance, this time by Michael Fulmer, helped carry the day for Binghamton. Fulmer might be making some Met fans wonder whether he should be on the short list of candidates to be moved to bring a hitter to the big club. The right-hander has been terrific on the hill for Binghamton. Wednesday, he added five scoreless innings to his Double-A resume lowering his ERA to 2.03 striking out 9 and walking only one. Fulmer did allow 6 hits in the contest, all singles.
In recent years I’ve had the opportunity to witness a run of remarkable starting pitching run through Binghamton’s NYSEG Stadium. Starting with Matt Harvey and with Zack Wheeler, Rafael Montero, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and now Michael Fulmer the B-Mets have been rich in staring pitching talent. Fulmer’s performance this year for the B-Mets ranks with any of them. In 80 innings, Fulmer has allowed only 70 hits while striking out 74 batters and walking only 23.
Gavin Cecchini was an offensive catalyst once again for the Binghamton. The B-Met shortstop went 4-5 raising his batting average to .310. Over the last 8 games Cecchini is 15-for-34 scoring 7 runs and banging home 7 RBI’s. Thats a .441 batting clip. Cecchini spearheaded a 12 hit B-Met attack including two hit games from Michael Conforto and Josh Rodriguez. Rodriguez, Xorge Carrillo and Jared King all blasted home runs for the B-Mets.
All five runs logged against B-Met pitchers were charged against the B-Met bullpen. Newcomer Josh Smoker pitched a perfect ninth inning, his fifth scoreless outing in six appearances.
With a meager two games separating the first four teams in the Eastern Division every game takes on a larger significance. Binghamton travels to third place Trenton to battle the Thunder in a four game series beginning on Thursday.