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MMN Recap: Gonzalez, Kay and Nunez All Pitch Well

By Joseph Hill

April 28, 2019 No comments

Harol Gonzalez/Photo by Ed Delany

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (10-9) 7, Syracuse (13-9) 6 (F/10)   Box Score

In a makeup of Friday’s suspended game, the veteran Espinosa continued to heat up, extending his hitting streak to seven games. A few other veterans contributed to the offensive performance as well, including Gomez, Davis, and Gregor Blanco, who also recorded two hits. Gomez singled to give the Mets a temporary 6-5 lead in the top of the tenth. Dilson Herrera followed that up with a walk, but the struggling Tim Tebow struck out to end the threat and six runs proved not to be enough.

  • RHP Chris Flexen (1-1, 5.11 ERA): 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, BB, K
  • LHP Hector Santiago (1-1, 4.32 ERA): 4.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 6 BB, 5 K
  • RHP Paul Sewald (1-0, 3.00 ERA): 2.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, BB, K
  • RHP Tim Peterson (L, 0-3, 3.38 ERA): 2.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, ER, 0 BB, 2 K

Flexen was slated to start this game on Friday, but only made it through two batters before the game was called due to weather. So in Saturday’s makeup, the Mets called upon Santiago, who did not have good control and allowed a lot of baserunners but provided 4.1 decent innings to save the bullpen. Sewald, who had been pitching really well so far and had not allowed a run coming into the night, pitching 1.1 more scoreless innings before getting hit around in the seventh. Peterson pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth, but was unable to hold a one-run lead in the bottom of the tenth as the second batter he faced smacked a walkoff two-run homer. Peterson has received the loss in three of his five minor league appearances this year.

Syracuse (14-9) 3, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (10-10) 2 (F/7)   Box Score

  • Danny Espinosa 2B: 2-4, 2B, .278/.342/.486
  • Travis Taijeron 1B: 1-3, 2B, 2 K, .258/.390/.694
  • Gregor Blanco CF: 1-2, HR, 2 RBI, BB, .262/.357/.459

Blanco hit his third home run of the season in the third inning, a two-run shot to put the Mets up 3-0. The veteran Blanco has really heated up after a rough start, hitting in nine straight games now, a stretch in which he has batted .379 to raise his average almost .100 points. Espinosa is another veteran who continues to heat up, as he doubled to extend his hitting streak to eight. Taijeron also recorded a double as he continued his very strong return to the Mets organization. Thus far, he’s been the Syracuse Mets’ best hitter. The Mets were quiet after the third in the seven-inning affair.

Flexen and Santiago were both unavailable because of the suspended game, so the Mets had to resort to a bullpen game in their second game of the day. Luckily, they only had to get through seven innings. Taylor did his job despite shaky command, giving the Mets three scoreless innings. Batters have hit .291 off Taylor this year, but he has done a good job of limiting runs in the early going. The hard-throwing Hanhold has succeeded thus far despite a 1.64 WHIP. Bashlor, who is off to a shaky start, allowed a triple and a single with two outs but held on to record his second save of the year.

Binghamton (10-6) 1, Portland (5-12) 0 (F/7)   Box Score

The Rumble Ponies offense was very quiet in the first game of the doubleheader, collecting just three hits as a team. Haggerty, who got one of those hits, continued his solid start after he was considered just a throw-in in the Kevin Plawecki trade. He also stole his fifth base of the season. Gimenez, who was on a hot streak after a slow start, has now cooled off again and has gone hitless in his last three games. Lee gave the Ponies their only extra-base hit, a triple in the fourth, and came in on a Will Toffey single for the only run of the game for either team. Lee has had a smaller sample of plate appearances than most of the rest of the team, but has posted a .903 OPS in the time he’s played.

  • RHP Harol Gonzalez (W, 2-0, 2.03 ERA): 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, BB, 9 K
  • RHP Joe Zanghi (2-0, 0.84 ERA): 2.0 IP, H, 0 R, 0 BB, K

Gonzalez was masterful through five innings, continuing his early-season dominance in which he has held batters to a .156 average. This is a huge turnaround compared to last year, when he went 0-9 in nine starts for Binghamton with an ugly 7.79 ERA. He struck out only 30 in 52 Double-A innings last year, but has already struck out 19 in 13.1 innings this year. Zanghi is also off to a hot start, with just one run allowed in 10.2 innings pitched this season. He threw two scoreless innings to nail down the save.

Portland (6-12) 1, Binghamton (10-7) 0 (F/7)   Box Score

  • Andres Gimenez SS: 0-3, 2 K, .231/.306/.369
  • Patrick Mazeika C: 1-3, K, .179/.281/.250
  • Will Toffey DH: 2-3, .216/.394/.373

The theme of little offense continued into the second game of the doubleheader, with Binghamton falling on the wrong side of a 1-0 score this time. Gimenez struck out twice to extend his hitless streak to four games, as his up-and-down start to the season continued. Mazeika has started off slowly with the bat for the second consecutive year, but hopefully his hit will start to spark a turnaround. Toffey has been doing a whole lot of walking and not much hitting this year, but he smacked two singles to finish 3-6 in the doubleheader as that average finally climbed above the .200 mark.

Don’t be fooled by his record. Kay delivered another great performance in his fifth start of the season for Binghamton, allowing only a run-scoring single in the fifth. He has been dominant in his first taste of Double-A, holding hitters to a .157 average. The only slight concern has been 11 walks in 24.1 innings. Slowly but surely, he is giving the Mets reason to consider another promotion in the near future.

Nogosek is off to a good start despite an awful strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3 to 8. He has always been good at limiting hits, but walks are what gave him problems last year and really all throughout his minor league career. If he could get those walks down, he’d have a chance at being successful in the long run.

Photo by Ed Delany, MMN

St. Lucie (13-10) 10, Florida (7-16) 9 (F/10)   Box Score

It was a great game for Bohanek, who collected four hits on the day, including a walkoff single to complete a mini-comeback as the Mets entered the bottom of the tenth down 9-8. Bohanek was pretty much just considered a throw-in when he was acquired this offseason in the J.D. Davis trade, but he’s done well for the Rumble Ponies, albeit without much power. Vasquez, the Mets’ best first base prospect with the graduation of Pete Alonso, has done very well in the early going, particularly in getting on base. However, with one home run this year, he’s still yet to really tap into the power that is typically expected of a first baseman.

  • RHP Tony Dibrell (2-1, 3.16 ERA): 4.0 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 3 K
  • RHP Max Kuhns (0-0, 4.50 ERA): 2.0 IP, H, R, 2 BB, K
  • RHP Conner O’Neil (1-0, 4.76 ERA): 1.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, BB, K
  • RHP Joseph Shaw (0-0, 1.42 ERA): 1.2 IP, H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K
  • RHP Blake Taylor (W, 2-0, 4.22 ERA): 1.0 IP, 2 H, R, 0 ER, 0 BB, K

Of Dibrell’s five starts this season, this was the worst one, and the first one in which he allowed more than two runs. He simply lacked efficiency and command as he turned in a bit of a messy outing. Kuhns made his first appearance of the season after only pitching five games for the GCL Mets last year. O’Neil had been off to a very good start as well but struggled with command as he immediately gave up a double and a homer upon entering the game in the seventh.

Shaw, working as a reliever for the first time since 2015 for Kingsport, has gotten off to a very solid start with nine strikeouts and one earned run allowed in 6.1 innings. However, he gave up a single to the first batter he faced in the eighth, allowing O’Neil’s inherited runner to score and tying the game at 8. He settled down though to send the game into extra innings. Taylor came in in the tenth inning and gave up a double that scored the runner who started at second base. He then gave up a single, but another run would not score as right fielder Hansel Moreno threw the runner out at home to end the frame.

Columbia (8-14) 7, Charleston (10-13) 2   Box Score

Sharp has put together three very nice performances in a row, going 5-11 with two doubles and a walk in his last three games. He’s already showing a lot more power in a small sample than he did in his 50 games for Brooklyn last year. Mauricio is off to a nice start, but the 18-year-old is still yet to tap into the raw power that the Mets are confident the youngster will continue to develop as he matures. Vientos, on the other hand, is off to a slow start, but recorded two hits on Saturday including an RBI single in the seventh. Wagner Lagrange made the lead comfortable with a two-run triple in the top of the ninth.

Nunez has done a very nice job so far, posting an impressive 0.76 WHIP and striking out 33 in 22.1 innings this year. He seems to be handling the transition from Kingsport to Columbia very well thus far. Ramos is also off to a very good start, striking out 16 and allowing six hits in 11.2 innings. In his small body of work, all of his numbers and peripherals look much stronger than what he posted for Columbia last year. Mitchell has been dominant everywhere he’s been in his still brief minor league career, as he now has a 1.11 ERA along with 4 strikeouts in 32.1 minor league innings. Zabaleta continues to quietly be a solid piece in that bullpen as well.

 

 

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