Lugo Leads B-Mets Over Portland

Portland Sea Dogs @ Binghamton Mets

May 5, 2015

Mike McCarthy @ Seth Lugo

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Portland	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		1	5	3
Binghamton	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	0	X		3	5	0

W: Lugo (2-0, 1.37 ERA); L: McCarthy (2-3, 5.32 ERA); S: Sewald (5, 0.00 ERA)

MiLB.com Boxscore

The Highlights:

Pitchers

Seth Lugo – 6.2 IP, 5 H, R, BB, 6 SO, HBP, 98 Pitches (62 Strikes), 7 GO: 1 FO

Adam Kolarek (7.43 ERA) – 1.1 IP, 3 GO: 1 FO

Paul Sewald – 1 IP, SO, 1 FO

Batters

T.J. Rivera – 1-4, R, RBI (8)

Jayce Boyd – 1-3, BB

Josh Rodriguez – 2-4, R, RBI (18)

Gavin Cecchini – 1-3, RBI (13)

Recap

            The B-Mets evened their series with Portland Tuesday night behind another great start from Seth Lugo, and some more timely hits. Neither team had many opportunities to score in this pitching duel, but the B-Mets did a better job of capitalizing on their chances, scratching out a run in the 2^nd and two in the 5^th. After allowing a high rate of batters to reach over the first two innings, Lugo retired 13 of the final 15 Portland batters he’d face. Adam Kolarek and Paul Sewald came in from the pen for the final 2.1 IP, and they finished the game in dominant fashion, allowing zero base runners to reach. Check out some B-Mets offense, and much more discussion of Seth Lugo’s start below. The series continues Wednesday night at 6:35 PM, with Rainy Lara looking to bounce back from his shortest start of the year for the B-Mets.

Scoring Highlights

            Josh Rodriguez hit a one-out single in the 2^nd, moved to 2B on an E6, and scored on this RBI single from Gavin Cecchini.

            Jayce Boyd led off the 4^th with this single back up the middle, but he’d be stranded at 2B.

            Jared King reached second base when Portland players made an error on consecutive plays in the 5^th, and then scored on this RBI single from T.J. Rivera. After Boyd drew a walk, J Rod brought home Rivera with his second hit of the game.

BONUS

Future Mets SS

First play of the game, and he's out at 1B

Lugo Coverage

Lugo was coming off a rain-shortened outing against this Portland lineup last week, when he ended up charged for some unearned runs that came in after he left. He allowed four base runners in his 1.1 IP during that start, so when Portland had five base runners reach in the first 1.2 IP tonight, it seemed possible Lugo was heading for an early exit. But Lugo hadn’t been hit hard (although he probably got a bruise on his leg from a comebacker that went for an infield single), and the results balanced out, as he only allowed two base runners over his final 5 IP.

After allowing a one-out single in the 2^nd, Lugo bounced back to pick up his first strikeout with a curveball, which has been very effective for him in AA. He got ahead 0-2 on the next batter, but then lost him to a HBP. He again got ahead in the next AB, this time 1-2, but Blake Tekotte didn’t chase a pitch in the dirt, and then Lugo didn’t get the call on a very close pitch. Tekotte would line an RBI single into RF, where Eudy Pina bobbled it, so there was no play at the plate. Lugo would not mess around with the next batter, striking him out on 3 pitches, capping it off with a 91 MPH fastball that Mike Miller couldn’t catch up to.

After allowing the run scoring single, Lugo retired the next 9 Sea Dogs batter, with four strikeouts along the way. He started the 3^rd inning by striking out Carlos Asuaje with a 93 MPH fastball that he chased at the top of the zone, and finished it by striking out Oscar Tejeda with a breaking ball. It took him just 10 pitches to work through a 1-2-3 4^th, which included a weak pop out to Cheech, and a strikeout of Keury De La Cruz on an offspeed pitch. He worked around a two-out triple in the 5^th, when he also struck out Tekotte on a nice big curveball.

Overall, it was another great start for Seth Lugo, who is jumping up the Mets prospect rankings list. Of the 25 batters he faced, 16 ended with a groundball (8), strikeout (6), or pop up (2), which is a good recipe for success – also, two of the line drives hit against him are classified as ‘soft line drives’ by gameday. It’s only been 19.2 IP, but he has a 1.37 ERA, 24.1 K%: 3.8 BB%, and a FIP of about 2.25, so he’s definitely someone to watch.

Astronomers find first evidence of changing conditions on a super-Earth, http://t.co/Nt661gCNrm pic.twitter.com/wSHBBDSwGm

— Astronomy Magazine (@AstronomyMag) May 5, 2015