Game 7: Somerset Patriots Post-Game Notes
Mike Ashmore
So, that went well.
Yes, again.
But damn, did we all freeze watching it. In unseasonably cold conditions, the Somerset Patriots needed 11 innings to pull off a come from behind 4-3 win over the York Revolution on Wednesday night.
"It was bitter," said Scott Kelly (pictured). "It was wearing down on you out there, but you try to just mentally stay in it. But oh yeah, it was cold."
But you'd never know it from watching "The Kid." After a dramatic eighth inning comeback off of York's bullpen turned what seemed like a surefire first loss of the season into anybody's ballgame, Somerset pulled off their most improbable win yet in a bizarre sequence of events that culminated with Kelly crossing the plate to send everyone home.
With one out in the bottom of the 11th, Kelly singled to center field, and everyone left in the ballpark knew he was going to try to steal second base.
"You want to get in scoring position as soon as possible so you can give guys an opportunity to get you in, and that was the goal there," he said.
"I didn't know much about (Revolution reliever Daniel Carela)," said Pats skipper Brett Jodie. "I knew what he had, but a lot of the power pitchers are slower to the plate. So, we had him on go. If the guy looks slow, we're going to go quickly."
Kelly was in easily at second, leading to an intentional walk of the batter at the plate, Darwin Perez, to set up the double play. About that, though...
"The (double steal), obviously you're in scoring position, but you've got to get a base hit to score him," Jodie said. "If you can get a wild pitch or a sac fly...well, a lot of things can score him there. We took that bag too, and he was being smart and took that chance too."
What followed were two phenomenal at-bats by Yovan Gonzalez and Trayvon Robinson. Gonzalez worked a seven-pitch walk to load the bases, and Robinson had a tremendous plate appearances where he missed winning the game with his bat by inches. Instead, Carela fired high and wide, and Kelly instinctively took off towards the plate.
"I didn't really hesitate in doing that, and luckily it ricocheted off at the right angle," he said. "I was just trying to read a ball in the dirt, saw the ball go by the catcher and broke. Thank God that ball didn't bounce right back to the plate, it was a little bit away and I was safe."
Upon further review, if the play were executed perfectly by Carela and Revolution catcher Keith Castillo, Kelly would have been out. Carela correctly covered home plate, but it appeared Castillo hesitated in whether he should toss the ball to his pitcher or make the play himself. By the time he sped up and turned slightly to his left to try to make the tag, it was already too late, although Castillo briefly staged a vehement argument with home plate umpire Ian Kelley.
"As I was running, I just saw the ball come back and was like, 'Oh, gotta get there,'" Kelly said. "But it was such a good team effort to come back from 3-0 in the back end of a doubleheader. That just shows the grit and the fight. Eric Farris said we're the 'Cardiac Kids,' and that's good to have. These guys never give up and they're always pulling for each other."
The baseball appeared to end up in the stands afterwards, although there doesn't seem to be video evidence of whether it was Castillo who flung it up there or not. The memento is long gone, but the win is what matters. And there are plenty of reasons why Somerset was able to pull it off besides just a lot of things falling into place nearly 12 hours after the first pitch of the day was thrown.
For starters, there seems to be a new-found aggression on the basepaths that hasn't been seen in years in Somerset. Last season, the team had 110 stolen bases in 139 games. This year, they've swiped 13 bags in just seven games, good for second in the Atlantic League.
"You've just got to play to the strengths of your team," Jodie said. "I think we have a team this year that's very versatile; we can win with the longball, we can win stealing bases, we can win a lot of different ways. We're going to use what we have, and we had kind of a speedy lineup in there tonight with Fields and some of the other guys sitting. When you have guys like that, you need to take advantage of it and put some guys in motion and run a little bit and put some pressure on. We've been doing some more bunts, too. Moving two guys over sometimes and getting our hitters up with guys in scoring position. This just seems to be one of our strengths lately."
Secondly, the bullpen has been tremendous. A 1.16 ERA in 31 1/3 IP should back that up nicely. After Mickey Storey held the Revs to just two runs through six innings in a solid, yet largely forgotten start, Somerset used a combo of Brandon Sisk, Arik Sikula, Jeremy McBryde and Mike Thomas for the final five frames.
Thomas in particular gutted his way through two frigid innings in which he worked his way in and out of jams. The former Rider standout celebrated with a fist pump after finishing up the top of the 11th, and was rewarded with a win after the events in the bottom half of the inning.
"It was cold, but I'm used to it, being a Northeast guy," he said. "Actually at Rider, we were one of the southern schools, which sounds funny, but pitching in New York and Connecticut and pitching in that cold weather, you definitely get used to it. When it comes into play out there, it helps. (Regardless of weather), those are situations you want to be in. When the game is on the line, you want to be the guy who goes out there and can help your team win."
And what a win it was, one that's helped tighten the bond of an already close team.
"It's awesome here, especially with the group of guys we have," Thomas said. "We goof around with each other, there's shenanigans in the clubhouse and everybody's telling jokes. But when we get out there on that field, you can tell that everybody has that switch that we flip on and it's go time. We don't stop until we get that win or whatever happens. But we come back in and it's family again, and everybody's having a good time and we come back for the next day."
Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com