Conlon Great For 8 But The Ponies Manage Barely A Neigh, Let Alone A Rumble

Friday, May 12, 2017

Conlon Great For 8 But The Ponies Manage Barely A Neigh, Let Alone A Rumble

Akron Rubber Ducks @ Binghamton Rumble Ponies

May 11, 2017

Luis Lugo @ P.J. Conlon

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

W: Lugo (2-1, 1.91 ERA); L: Conlon (3-2, 2.88 ERA); Save: Holland (1)

The Highlights:

Pitchers

P.J. Conlon (L, 3-2, 2.88 ERA) – 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R (1 ER), 5 TB, 6 K (2 K/Sw), 1 GIDP, 13 GB: 4 FB: 5 LD: 0 PU, 97 Pitches (68 Strikes), 8 Swinging, 28 Called, 8.2% SwStr, 20% Whiff/Swing, 12.1 Pitches/IP, 28 BF

Ben Griset (4.09 ERA) – 1 IP, 1 K (1 K/Sw), 1 FB: 1 LD, 10 Pitches (6 Strikes), 1 Swinging, 10% SwStr, 16.7% Whiff/Swing, 10 Pitches/IP, 3 BF

Batters

CF - Champ Stuart - 0-4, 2 K, 16.7% SwStr, 33.3% Whiff/Swing, 4.5 Pitches/PA

2B - Luis Guillorme - 0-4, 1 K, 14.3% SwStr, 28.6% Whiff/Swing, 3.5 Pitches/PA

C - Tomas Nido - 1-3, 1 2B, 1 BB, 5.5 Pitches/PA

1B - Cody Decker - 0-4, 1.75 Pitches/PA

LF - Kevin Taylor - 0-2, 2 BB, 5 Pitches/PA

DH - Matt Oberste - 0-4, 3.5 Pitches/PA

3B - David Thompson - 0-4, 1 K, 7.7% SwStr, 14.3% Whiff/Swing, 3.25 Pitches/PA

RF - Kevin Kaczmarski - 0-1, 2 BB, 4.67 Pitches/PA

SS - Jiovanni Mier - 1-3, 3.33 Pitches/PA

Recapish

The Rumble Ponies could not have asked for more from P.J. Conlon Thursday night, as he finished 8 innings and allowed just one run on a seeing-eye RBI single with two outs in the 4^th. Unfortunately, Akron did get slightly more from their pitchers, as starter Luis Lugo held Binghamton to just one hit over his 6 innings, and the Rubber Ducks pen faced one batter over the minimum during the final 3 to secure a 1-0 win.

Conlon and Lugo actually allowed the same number of base runners Thursday night, but the Ponies couldn’t do anything with the 5 walks drawn against the Ducks starter. Conlon allowed just two runners to reach second base over his 8 innings, and seemed in control whether runners were on base or not.

He doesn’t light up the radar gun with his fastball (85-88 most starts), but he does a lot of things well. He has good control of a four-pitch mix and he’ll adjust his usage rates throughout the start based on what’s working for him that night. He works quickly (see GIF with 2 pitches within 15 seconds below) but doesn’t rush anything, which shows when he is fielding the ball (examples below). The so-called Quad-A players often breeze through Double-A, and Conlon could still prove to be that guy (as someone with much more experience than me recently wrote), but I think there’s a major league mind attached to that “fringe arm,” one that should at least carve out a role in the pen.

Back to this game, well there isn’t much more to say. Mike Papi led off the Akron 4^th with a single, advanced to third base after a pair of groundouts, and then came home when this Dorssys Paulino single somehow snuck through the middle of the infield.

Luis Guillorme made another ridiculous play at second base for Binghamton (also shown starting a double play).

Tomas Nido smacked a double for Binghamton in the 3^rd.

Other than some Conlon highlights (at the bottom), that was it. The cameraman was tracking fly balls like this was a golf broadcast, so it didn’t show Champ Stuart running a long way for a fly ball at the warning track – hopefully that’s not going to continue. These two continue this series Friday night at 7:05 PM, with Donovan Hand (1-0, 4.74 ERA) scheduled to start for Binghamton.