For the second straight night, the Senators spotted their opponent, this time the Binghamton Mets, 2 runs in the top of the 1st inning. Like Friday night, the Senators fell further behind in the middle innings. But unlike Friday night, Harrisburg didn't come back late and fell to the visiting B-Mets 6-1 in front of 5,168 fans on City Island. Binghamton strung together 3 hits and jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the 1st inning off of eventual losing pitcher Beltran Perez. The B-Mets added 3 more runs in the 4th inning to take a 5-0 lead. Perez was nickeled and dimed to death, as he was peppered for 11 hits in 5 innings of work, 10 of those hits singles. Binghamton also hit many balls hard off of Perez, a good number of them seemingly just beyond the Senators' fielders' reach. Gerald Plexico relieved Perez in the 6th inning and promptly gave up a run on a wild pitch (which nonetheless should have been stopped by catcher Salomon Manriquez). Plexico did settle down after that and was untouched the remainder of the game, giving up only 2 hits total in 4 innings (and helping to save the Senators' bullpen), but it didn't matter as the Senators' offense couldn't string anything together. Harrisburg averted the shutout when Manriquez hit a solo homer in the 7th inning. Binghamton starter Tim McNab did a solid job and picked up the win, pitching 5 1/3 innings and giving up 4 hits and 0 walks while striking out 5 batters before leaving with an injury.
General game notes:
- Tonight's home plate umpire had a bad case of what I like to call the "amoeba strike zone" - shapeless and constantly changing without rhyme or reason. Pitches that looked like strikes were called balls, and pitches that looked like balls were called strikes, and which balls were which seemed to change from inning to inning. Many fans agreed with my assessment of the umpire's strike zone.
- The official scorer had nearly as many strange decisions as the home plate umpire, calling a number of plays for both teams hits that could have been ruled errors instead. Senators SS Seth Bynum had a particularly tough night, making the only official error of the game but also failing to field a ball that was ruled a hit but appeared to be an error to my eyes.
- Though the pitching wasn't exceptional, at least on the Senators' side, neither team's pitchers issued any walks.
Individual player notes:
Kory Casto - suffered through an 0 for 4 night at the plate, striking out twice. His other 2 at-bats resulted in a deep fly out down the LF line and a hard-hit line-out to RF. In the field Casto made a nice play on a short-hop grounder, though he couldn't quite catch a liner near him early in the game. He's now hitting .300 on the season and has OBP/SLG/OPS numbers of .423/.538/.961.
Salomon Manriquez - was the bright spot for the Senators' offense, going 3 for 4 with a homer, double, and single. He showed good hustle on his double, a ball down the LF line where Manriquez never stopped running and surprised the B-Mets' leftfielder, who never made a throw to 2nd base. On defense, as noted above he was unable to stop a wild pitch that went through the wickets. He also gave up a stolen base, through that was more Perez' fault. Manriquez is now hitting .296 and has OBP/SLG/OPS numbers of .368/.425/.793.
Tim Raines Jr. - had a 1 for 4 night with a single. He also struck out twice. Raines played solidly in CF.
Prentice Redman - was hitless in 4 at-bats and also struck out twice. He played acceptable defense in RF.
Josh Whitesell - like some of his teammates, he had a poor night at the plate, going 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts. He did make one nice unassisted play on defense at 1st base.
Melvin Dorta/Dan Dement - Dorta went 2 for 4 with a pair of singles, while Dement had a single in 4 at-bats. Dement had some troubles in the field at 2nd base, dealing with some bad hops and balls just beyond his glove. Dorta did nothing notable, either good or bad, in LF.
Beltran Perez - had one of his worst outings of the season. In his 7th start of the season, he gave up 5 runs (all earned) and 11 hits in 5 innings while striking 6 B-Mets' hitters. Perez fell to 5-2 on the season and his ERA went up to 3.56.
MILB.com box score
