Mill River atones for a blown lead

Mill River let a 10-run lead get away in the sixth inning then scored three times in the seventh for a 19-16 win over Springfield in a zany Marble Valley League game Friday at Riverside Park.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110430/SPORTS/704309887

Published April 30, 2011 in the Rutland Herald
MR atones for a blown lead

By POODY WALSH

SPRINGFIELD — Mill River let a 10-run lead get away in the sixth inning then scored three times in the seventh for a 19-16 win over Springfield in a zany Marble Valley League game Friday at Riverside Park.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a game where a team blew a 10-run lead,” Mill River coach Gary MacDonald said.

The game, which started at 4:30 p.m. and ended at 7:45 p.m., featured 331 pitches, 31 hits, 15 errors, 11 bases on balls and 10 strikeouts.

Springfield entered the sixth losing 16-6 and scored 10 times in an inning in which Mill River had six miscues.

Both teams ran into pitching issues. Mill River came into the game without a starting pitcher, who was disciplined for a school issue. Joe Beland started for the Minutemen, but by the fifth inning had reached the maximum 120 pitches and had to come out. Alex Goyette and Josh Maniery followed, with Maniery picking up the win.

Springfield went through four pitchers, with Tyler Fontaine pitching twice. When Springfield tied the game at 16-16 in sixth, Springfield coach Larry Partridge brought in his ace, Jeremy Currie, in the seventh. Partridge hoped he could get an inning out of Currie with a minimum of pitches because he is slated to start today’s 11 a.m. game at Windsor. However, Currie ran into trouble and before his pitch count got to 25 Partridge took him out so he could still start today. Currie ended up being the losing pitcher.

Both coaches were kind of perplexed at what took place. Partridge hung his head a bit and scuffed the turf, saying ”We just can’t catch a break.” The Cosmos are now 0-4.

Mill River has now won three in a row and is 4-3 on the season, but it wasn’t a happy MacDonald after the game, knowing that it was a game his team could have lost even though it led by 10 runs late in the game.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was just ugly.”

While some of it was ugly, there were certainly some highlights as Goyette and Beland each had four hits for Mill River while Jamie MacDonald had three. Eight of the nine Mill River starters had at least one hit.

Seven of the nine Springfield starters had hits, including three by Kirk Perham and Taylor Fontaine.

When Springfield came to bat in the bottom of the sixth with a 10-run deficit ,there was talk of the Cosmos not extending the game if they didn’t score. The losing team has that option with a 10-run deficit after the fifth inning.

There was not much thought of Springfield coming from that far behind even when the Cosmos scored four times with just one out. Then there were four consecutive bases on balls and a single by Ethan McAllister, and it was a crowd-numbing 16-15 game. With two down and Perham on second base the Cosmos tied the game when Fontaine looped a single to center.

To Mill River’s credit, the Minutemen responded to the Springfield comeback with three runs in the top of the seventh and Maniery set the Cosmos down in the bottom of the inning for the win. In the three-run Mill River seventh, the key blow was a two-out, two-run single from Beland. Jamie MacDonald drove in the final run for the Minutemen, who will take a deep breath and get ready for a Tuesday game with Fair Haven.