Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Powers start spoiled against Valley

For six innings, Vermont starter Damian Powers had held the Valley Blue Sox hitless, the lone baserunner reaching on a one-out error in the sixth.

The seventh inning was a doozy. The first seven Blue Sox hitters to come to the plate scored as they piled on seven singles, six in a row against ace reliever Sam Delaplane. Valley tacked on six more in the ninth and came away with a big 13-4 win, handing Vermont a fourth loss in its last five games.

Delaplane, who was making his first appearance in over a week, entered having not allowed a hit in 7.2 innings. That changed quickly, as he inherited a pair of runners and promptly surrendered five earned runs on six hits while walking another.

It was yet another inning that just unraveled for the Mountaineers during this skid. Large innings surrendered to North Adams (six runs), Sanford (five runs) and Laconia (seven runs) cost them, and this was no different. It was a drastic reversal of the first six innings, which had taken just an hour and nine minutes.

Powers saw his no-hitter broken up with a leadoff single from Garrett McClain, and he left after issuing a walk to Manny DeJesus. Delaplane entered and walked the first batter he faced before the hits started coming. Valley, who had racked up 18 hits in a blowout win the night before, found holes left and right.

Clay Payne lined a two-run single through the left side to give Valley the lead for good, and Jake Lumley followed with a two-run single just inside the first base line.

Jon Ducoff, John Adryan and Manny Pazos followed with RBI singles and Valley jumped out to a 7-1 lead.

Powers was untouchable early, retiring the first 16 batters he faced. An error broke up the perfect game bid, but a double play got him out of the inning having faced the minimum through six. He was charged with the loss despite allowing just two runs on one hit over six innings as both of the runners he left on scored.

It shaped up to be a pitchers duel as Valley’s Scott Burke, a recent arrival, was dealing early. His lone mistake through the early innings was hesitating on a Derek Chapman ground ball right back at him with a runner on third. Chapman beat out what would’ve been an inning-ending double play to score Joe Dudek from third for the games first run.

However, the hard throwing righty bounced back to retire 13 of the next 14 batters he faced. Burke gave up a two-run shot to Pat Madigan in his last inning of work, but still picked up his first win of the summer as he was backed by more then enough run support.

Garrison Banas, who relieved Delaplane in the seventh, worked quickly through his first four batters before running into more trouble in the ninth. He got just one out through the first nine batters, giving up six more runs. A pair of intentional walks didn’t work out, as a passed ball, a pair of bases loaded walks and two more run-scoring singles gave Valley a convincing nine-run lead.

Payne drove in three runs in the win, their third in a row. They put up 13 runs for the second straight game as they batted around twice after being held hitless the first two times through the lineup.

Blue Sox reliever Tyler Barrss was charged with a lone unearned run in the eighth, as Jack Parenty led off with a single and worked his way around after a throwing error from the catcher. Dudek lined a RBI single in a gap and Madigan drew a two-out walk, but Kevin Stypulkowski, then the potential game-tying run, fouled out to end the inning.

The Mountaineerslook to get back on track when they host Northern Division rival Sanford tonight. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

No comments :

Post a Comment