Scrappers’ return home spins out of control from start

July 22, 2016 at 12:09a.m.

By BRIAN DZENIS

NILES

For as well as the Mahoning Valley Scrappers have played recently on the road, they brought none of that home to Eastwood Field.

It took less than a dozen pitches for the Scrappers to fall behind the Lowell Spinners and the hole got deeper and deeper en route to a 13-1 loss Thursday night to start a six-game homestead.

“We had a bad game pitching, defense, offense, base running, everything,” Scrappers manager Edwin Gonzalez said.

Outfielder Andrew Calica concurred.

“Usually it’s one or the other, but tonight nothing was going well,” he said.

The Scrappers (12-22) had some momentum going for them after winning seven of their last 10 games before the blowout loss. Starter Juan Hillman entered Thursday’s contest with a 0.87 ERA and went his past 241/3 innings without giving up an earned run.

It took just 11 pitches for the streak to go up in smoke.

Lowell’s Chris Madera doubled and eventually scored Ryan Scott’s sacrifice fly. Tucker Tubbs followed with a two-run homer over the left-field wall.

The Scrappers got on the board in the bottom of the second when Emmanuel Tapia reached first after Lowell shortstop Steven Reveles couldn’t get a routine groundout because the ball appeared to be stuck in his glove. Gavin Collins walked before Mitch Longo doubled down the third-base line to score Tapia. Following the double the Scrappers had runners at third and second with no outs, but couldn’t make anything out of that. Both Gian Paul Gonzalez and Alexis Pantoja popped out. After Pantoja’s out, Collins made a late attempt to score and was out at home plate.

Hillman’s night was over after giving up an RBI single to Spinners third baseman Andy Perez in the top of the fourth. Ping-Hsueh Chen came on in relief and gave up another run, which was credited to Hillman.

The godson of former major-league reliever Tom “Flash” Gordon gave up six runs on six hits and two walks with one strikeout. His ERA rose to 1.89 in three innings of work.

“I think he knew right away that his pitches weren’t there —the secondary pitches— so in that situation, he needs to concentrate more and pitch,” Gonzalez said. “They were aggressive. They swung on him first pitch and he needed to realize that and pitch to what they were giving him. I’m sure he’ll learn from this.”

The Spinners got to Chen in the following inning. Scott tripled, then scored off a wild pitch that bounced off the chest of Gonzalez. Things only got worse as Chen did not survive the fifth. The Scrappers later give up an RBI single to Isaias Lucena. Tapia caught a ball in foul territory with Lowell’s Yoan Aybar on third. After making the catch, Tapia threw the ball to home plate, but Aybar scored easily. Tapia had three of the Scrappers’ four errors.

“It was a bad game all around,” Gonzalez said. “If you want to point fingers, pretty much everybody played bad today.”

Another run chased Chen in favor of Michael Letkewicz. The Spinners (20-13) added another run in the fifth and two more in the eighth.

The Scrappers and Spinners meet again tonight at 7:05.

“It sucks, but you know you have to flush it and come back tomorrow,” Calica said. “The score might be 13-1, but it’s only one loss.”