The good news is that if this series is indeed a preview of the 2014 Mills Cup, we’re in for some good baseball. The bad news is that that it wasn’t as close as the 2-0 win by Myrtle Beach would otherwise suggest.
This, of course, is not discredit the effort that Matthew Spann did in escaping multiple jams in his five innings of work as the southpaw stranded eight runners through four innings before the Pelicans broke through in the 5th for the first of their two runs.
But the reality is that on most nights, you’re not going to be able to put that many baserunners on and get out of it unscathed. Not at this level.
Four of ’em were definitely Spann’s doing — or the umpire’s, if you were privy to the bellowing from Myrtle Beach batting coach Josue Perez prior to being ejected in the 8th — as he walked four, including two in the first inning.
Twice Spann loaded the bases with two outs, with three singles in the 2nd and a walk and two singled in the 4th. Spann’s fourth walk followed by a double set up second and third with no out. Tripp Keister did not elect to pull in the infield against power-hitting lefty Preston Beck, who indeed hit one sharply to second for the RBI groundout.
He did pull ’em in for Royce Bolinger and Tony Renda, playing shortstop, threw out the runner at the plate for the second out then leapt high to catch line drive 7′ off the ground to end the inning. But the damage was done.
Potomac, who got three doubles out of its five hits, saw all three extra-base hits go for naught.
Stephen Perez led off the second with a ground-rule double that bounced a foot inside the foul line in right and over the fence but only got as far as third.
Pleffner led off the 4th with double to left-center but was called out for interfering with a grounder to third as he dodged the ball but got in front of the fielder for the inning’s second, rally-killing out.
Renda got to second with two outs on an opposite-field drive to right, prompting the Pelicans to go “old-school” and call for their closer, Jose Leclerc, before the 9th inning to face Pleffner instead of issuing an intentional pass to put the go-ahead run on base and let Justin Spenger, who had already retired Oscar Tejeda easily, do it again.
Leclerc fanned Pleffner and struck out two more in 9th for the un-Soriano save that secured the 2-0 win.
Potomac remains in 1st place with an 8-8 mark as they host second-place Wilmington for the next four. It’ll be Ian Dickson (1-6, 6.11) scheduled to face off against Luis Santos (1-1, 7.06).