Bill Hass on Grasshoppers Baseball from Sunday:Reed impressive in his first game

from Bill Hass, with Bill on Baseball, at www.gsohoppers.com:

Reed impressive in his first game

Now that’s the way to make a debut.

Left-handed pitcher Frankie Reed pitched in his first game as a Hopper Sunday and wound up as the winning pitcher as Greensboro came from behind to beat Delmarva 4-3.

Reed pitched the eighth and ninth innings and retired all six batters he faced. No one wanted to get in the game more than he did.

“It had been nine days since my last outing,” he said. “Five at Jamestown and then four here. So I was itching to get in.”

Reed, who gives the Hoppers a second lefty for the bullpen (with Greg Nappo), entered with the Hoppers down 3-2 and set the Shorebirds down in order in the eighth. After James Wooster’s two-run homer made him the pitcher of record, he did the same thing in the ninth to pick up the win.

“I was throwing my fastball and slider today,” he said. “I only threw a changeup a couple of times. I just trusted the catcher (Tony Caldwell) and followed his lead. He had been calling the whole game, so why not?”

Reed knows a lot of the Hoppers players from Jamestown last season, but it’s still a little strange to parachute into a new team in August. But he said he felt accepted by everyone.

Starter Scott Lyman was charged with three runs in five innings, allowing four hits but walking five and recording no strikeouts. James Nygren, although he allowed two inherited runners to score on infield groundouts, put up two shutout innings before Reed came on.

The Hoppers offense was stymied for five innings by 19-year-old left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez. They loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth but couldn’t score as Delmarva built a 3-0 lead. When Juan Guzman replaced him to start the sixth, the Hoppers began to chip away.

Aaron Senne tripled and scored on a wild pitch in the sixth. Greensboro loaded the bases after that but again couldn’t push across a run.

They put up another run in the seventh when Ryan Goetz hit his fourth home run of the season.

“That’s one for the little guys,” Goetz said. “It was a fastball up and this is a small park and I happened to hit it out. Our approach all season has been to get the pitch count up on the starting pitcher and then get into the bullpen.”

In the eighth, Ryan Rieger drew an important one-out walk. After Austin Nola flied out, Wooster belted his 10th homer of the season to give the Hoppers the lead.

“I wanted to drive something to left center field,” he said. “It was a 2-0 pitch and I got a fastball. This was a good win. We just kept at it and playing hard. We’re playing with more energy lately and picking each other up, playing more like a team.”

Charlie Lowell will close out the home stand on the mount for the Hoppers in a 12:30 game today.

Follow Bill Hass all season long at www.gsohoppers.com…..