AUBURN - All the Auburn Doubledays needed was a good night's rest and a productive pre-game discussion.
Jennifer Meyers / The Citizen
Auburn Doubledays' Leance Soto has a bumpy slide into second base as the Vermont Lake Monsters shortstop Daniel Lyons waits for the throw from center field during Wednesday's game at Falcon Park.
Auburn Doubledays' Leance Soto has a bumpy slide into second base as the Vermont Lake Monsters shortstop Daniel Lyons waits for the throw from center field during Wednesday's game at Falcon Park.
After a treacherous day on Tuesday in which the team worked on limited sleep because of a difficult trip back from Massachusetts and lost to Vermont 7-1, the Doubledays came back with a vengeance on Wednesday against the Lake Monsters. Two big bats and one huge inning overwhelmed Vermont at Falcon Park on Wednesday as the Doubledays took the second game of the series, 9-2.
One day after the Lake Monsters spread out 12 strikeouts and Auburn came away with only six hits, Doubledays hitting coach Justin Mashore and Manager Dennis Holmberg talked to the team about being pickier at the plate.
“Sometimes they get caught up in the fact that they're not getting hits and they just try to hit the ball and hope it works out for them,” Mashore said. “We talked about being patient and we hoped that it paid off.”
“We had a little conversation with all of the players before the game,” Holmberg added. “We were just trying to get them to be more selective, more patient. Swinging at the pitches that they want to swing at, instead of the ones that other pitchers make them, or want them, to swing at.”
While the first two and the last three innings weren't laced with hits for Auburn, the middle ones were bursting with them. Just about every player had a hand in the 11-hit effort, and the two players that didn't sneak in a hit still scored a run.
Right fielder Victor Santana got things started in the third with a two-run home run over his side of the field that also scored Darin Mastroianni. The blast was his third homer of the season, but his first at home. It also tied him for the team lead in home runs with fellow outfielder Adam Calderone and first baseman Manny Rodriguez.
However, that lasted only an inning as Calderone blasted his own homer over the right-field wall. It was also a two-run shot that scored Ben Zeskind to give Auburn a 4-0 lead.
Santana, who hit five home runs with Pulaski last season and Calderone, who gathered two with the Doubledays in 2006, have been having fun with the bragging rights that come with leading the team in home runs.
“Santana's been calling me Papi, like Big Papi (David Ortiz), and I've started calling him Victor Guerrero, like Vladimir,” Calderone said. “We kind of joke around about it, it's all in fun.”
Calderone almost had a lot more fun against the Lake Monsters - his three other at-bats were mere feet away from giving him his first multiple home run game of his career.
“I thought I hit a couple of them out too, that would have really blown the game open,” Calderone said. “But we still got runs in and we still got the big hits, so it was good. I felt like we hit the ball pretty well tonight, hopefully we keep it going.”
His second fly out of the game, to right field in the fifth, scored Rodriguez in the five-run inning for the Doubledays. After two singles and a walk courtesy of Matt Perks, Zeskind hit in the first score of the inning on a line-drive single that brought in JP Arencibia. After Calderone's RBI, Leance Soto smacked another single to Aaron Seuss in right field that scored CJ Ebarb and Zeskind. Soto later scored the Doubledays' final run when a Mastroianni hit squirted through the legs of shortstop Dan Lyons for Vermont's only error.
Coupled with their explosive hitting, Auburn also got some good work from a quartet of pitchers that stranded 11 Lake Monsters on the bags. Luis Perez made his fifth start of the season, but for the third time this year, missed out on a win after only four innings on the mound. Perez struck out seven batters and scattered four hits. Adam Rogers came into the game in relief after one batter and no outs in the fifth.
“Perez came in and couldn't get the last few guys out there in the fifth and once again, couldn't get the win,” Doubledays pitching coach Antonio Caceres said. “That's happened three times already because of his pitch count. I think the biggest difference was then (Javier) Nieves came in the seventh and got the big strikeout, that was the big thing. Rogers did an OK job, Perez had one rough inning, but Nieves was the one tonight.”
Edgar Estanga fanned three of five batters in the ninth to seal the win, but it was the second-year pitcher that stood out. Nieves got his second win of the season after relieving Rogers in the seventh with bases loaded and no outs. Nieves struck out two batters in as many innings, but didn't allow a player to reach base.
“He's throwing more strikes and he's got a slider now,” Caceres said of Nieves. “He's not afraid to pitch and throw the ball now. He knows how to pitch - when to throw a changeup, when to throw a fastball and when to throw a slider. He has good pitches for the most part. Young guys, even in the big leagues make mistakes sometimes, but it's all part of the game and that's the biggest difference in him this year.”
“Yesterday, we just came out flat and didn't play well,” Calderone said. “But today, I thought we did a real good job all around. We pitched well and the people we got on base, we were able to drive them in and that's the biggest thing.”
The winner of the three-game series will be decided today when Auburn (17-12) hosts Vermont (15-13).
D-days Today
Record: 17-12
Standings: First place, 2.5-game lead
Streak: 1 win
Next: vs. Vemont, today, 7 p.m.
One day after the Lake Monsters spread out 12 strikeouts and Auburn came away with only six hits, Doubledays hitting coach Justin Mashore and Manager Dennis Holmberg talked to the team about being pickier at the plate.
“Sometimes they get caught up in the fact that they're not getting hits and they just try to hit the ball and hope it works out for them,” Mashore said. “We talked about being patient and we hoped that it paid off.”
“We had a little conversation with all of the players before the game,” Holmberg added. “We were just trying to get them to be more selective, more patient. Swinging at the pitches that they want to swing at, instead of the ones that other pitchers make them, or want them, to swing at.”
While the first two and the last three innings weren't laced with hits for Auburn, the middle ones were bursting with them. Just about every player had a hand in the 11-hit effort, and the two players that didn't sneak in a hit still scored a run.
Right fielder Victor Santana got things started in the third with a two-run home run over his side of the field that also scored Darin Mastroianni. The blast was his third homer of the season, but his first at home. It also tied him for the team lead in home runs with fellow outfielder Adam Calderone and first baseman Manny Rodriguez.
However, that lasted only an inning as Calderone blasted his own homer over the right-field wall. It was also a two-run shot that scored Ben Zeskind to give Auburn a 4-0 lead.
Santana, who hit five home runs with Pulaski last season and Calderone, who gathered two with the Doubledays in 2006, have been having fun with the bragging rights that come with leading the team in home runs.
“Santana's been calling me Papi, like Big Papi (David Ortiz), and I've started calling him Victor Guerrero, like Vladimir,” Calderone said. “We kind of joke around about it, it's all in fun.”
Calderone almost had a lot more fun against the Lake Monsters - his three other at-bats were mere feet away from giving him his first multiple home run game of his career.
“I thought I hit a couple of them out too, that would have really blown the game open,” Calderone said. “But we still got runs in and we still got the big hits, so it was good. I felt like we hit the ball pretty well tonight, hopefully we keep it going.”
His second fly out of the game, to right field in the fifth, scored Rodriguez in the five-run inning for the Doubledays. After two singles and a walk courtesy of Matt Perks, Zeskind hit in the first score of the inning on a line-drive single that brought in JP Arencibia. After Calderone's RBI, Leance Soto smacked another single to Aaron Seuss in right field that scored CJ Ebarb and Zeskind. Soto later scored the Doubledays' final run when a Mastroianni hit squirted through the legs of shortstop Dan Lyons for Vermont's only error.
Coupled with their explosive hitting, Auburn also got some good work from a quartet of pitchers that stranded 11 Lake Monsters on the bags. Luis Perez made his fifth start of the season, but for the third time this year, missed out on a win after only four innings on the mound. Perez struck out seven batters and scattered four hits. Adam Rogers came into the game in relief after one batter and no outs in the fifth.
“Perez came in and couldn't get the last few guys out there in the fifth and once again, couldn't get the win,” Doubledays pitching coach Antonio Caceres said. “That's happened three times already because of his pitch count. I think the biggest difference was then (Javier) Nieves came in the seventh and got the big strikeout, that was the big thing. Rogers did an OK job, Perez had one rough inning, but Nieves was the one tonight.”
Edgar Estanga fanned three of five batters in the ninth to seal the win, but it was the second-year pitcher that stood out. Nieves got his second win of the season after relieving Rogers in the seventh with bases loaded and no outs. Nieves struck out two batters in as many innings, but didn't allow a player to reach base.
“He's throwing more strikes and he's got a slider now,” Caceres said of Nieves. “He's not afraid to pitch and throw the ball now. He knows how to pitch - when to throw a changeup, when to throw a fastball and when to throw a slider. He has good pitches for the most part. Young guys, even in the big leagues make mistakes sometimes, but it's all part of the game and that's the biggest difference in him this year.”
“Yesterday, we just came out flat and didn't play well,” Calderone said. “But today, I thought we did a real good job all around. We pitched well and the people we got on base, we were able to drive them in and that's the biggest thing.”
The winner of the three-game series will be decided today when Auburn (17-12) hosts Vermont (15-13).
D-days Today
Record: 17-12
Standings: First place, 2.5-game lead
Streak: 1 win
Next: vs. Vemont, today, 7 p.m.
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