I’ve been falling behind in talking about the games that I’ve been to since I’ve been busy with non-baseball activities (yes, that’s possible for me). I went to two Philadelphia Phillies games in June which I’ll need to talk about sometime, but I went to a game in Trenton which was pretty unbelievable.
I was anticipating a pretty good pitcher’s duel since the starters were Julio Rodriguez for Reading (who I coincidentally saw in my last Reading game) and Dellin Betances for Trenton, who are both considered pretty good prospects. The Phillies started out strong with a solo home run by 3B Cody Asche in the 1st inning. They added two more in the 2nd and four in the 3rd including a home run by DH Sebastian Valle. After that Betances was done giving up 7 runs on 10 hits.
After a quiet 4th inning, Reading tacked on two more in the 5th to go up 9-0. So it’s the middle of the 5th and Julio Rodriguez had yet to give up a hit (although he was a little wild giving up 3 walks and hitting 2B David Adams twice). In the bottom of the 5th, Rodriguez kept the streak going (hitting two more batters, that is), until giving up a single with one out in the inning. He couldn’t hold the shutout much longer either as Trenton plated five in the inning including a 3-run homer by RF Zoilo Almonte.
The scoring wasn’t done there because Reading scored two more times in the top of the 6th and Trenton scored one in the bottom of the inning. So now it’s Reading 11, Trenton 6 after 6 innings. So much for the pitcher’s duel.
The game quieted down a bit after that and I was thinking the two teams were just playing it out to get it over with. But after Reading Pitcher Colby Shreve got two outs in the 9th inning, things got interesting. It went like this: double, RBI single (11-7), RBI double (11-8), then a two-run home run by CF Melky Mesa making the game 11-10. Are they seriously doing this?
The Phillies had to get Shreve out of there and put in Tyler Knigge. His problem was getting past 1B Luke Murton, who was the Thunder’s home run leader. But there’s no way that he would actually hit a game-tying home run, is there? Then sure enough, first pitch is put over the fence and the game is tied at 11 and going into extra innings. Wow.
Reading managed to score an unearned run in the top of the 10th to go up 12-11. Not a good way to end the game.
And of course, that wasn’t the end of the game. With runners on first and third with one out, a likely strikeout-throw out double play resulted in a mishandled ball in the rundown between first and second and the runner from third scored before the tag was made. Since I was watching the rundown, I didn’t even notice the runner score and realize that the score was now 12-12 and we were heading to the 11th inning.
The 11th inning was quiet, but then in the bottom of the 12th, Trenton LF Jose Pirela barely cleared the wall ending the game at 13-12. Just another lazy Sunday afternoon at the ballpark.
I’m hoping to finally get to see a new team for me this season visiting the Carolina Mudcats, which are now in the Carolina League, on Saturday, August 4.
