Hoppers’ offense stifled by West Virginia
from Bill Hass with Bill on Baseball(Greensboro Grasshoppers) at www.gsohoppers.com
Having won their season opener with just three hits on Thursday, the Hoppers tried it again Friday.
Not surprisingly, it didn’t work.
West Virginia hung a 5-1 loss on Greensboro, breaking open a tight game with four runs in the top of the 12th inning. For the second straight game, the Hoppers were held to three hits. They went 3-for-40 Friday and are 6-for-66 in two games to start the season.
“Lackluster,” was how manager Kevin Randel described the anemic start by the offense. “We’ve got to get the guys at the top of the order going and we’ll be all right.”
Anfernee Seymour, Rony Cabrera and Josh Naylor, the first three hitters, each went 0-for-5. Down in the lineup, Isael Soto and Korey Dunbar were also 0-for-5 and Taylor Munden was 0-for-4.
Power starter Logan Sendelbach set the tone by retiring all 15 hitters he faced in the first five innings. The only hard-hit ball was by Cabrera, whose deep fly to left field was caught on the warning track.
“We couldn’t get a rhythm going,” Randel said. “He (Sendelbach) commanded the fastball well and got ahead of our hitters.”
Kyle Barrett got Greensboro’s first hit, an infield single, off Tanner Anderson in the sixth inning.
Fortunately, the Hoppers’ pitching kept them in the game. Starter Cody Poteet threw five innings and allowed two hits, one of them a homer by Casey Hughston in the second inning. After that, Poteet, Nestor Bautista, Andy Beltre and Ben Meyer put up nine scoreless innings.
“Poteet wasn’t at his sharpest,” said pitching coach Brendan Sagara, “but he always finds a way to compete. He took what he had tonight and used it. He’s got talent and willpower, two important ingredients.”
The Power broke through with two outs in the 12th. The big blow was a bases-loaded double by Tito Polo that scored three runs. Hoppers pitchers had worked out of several jams with runners in scoring position but L.J. Brewster, the fifth pitcher, gave up the decisive hit.
“They kept putting pressure on us,” Randel said, “and sooner or later the ball will find a hole.”
The Hoppers threatened in the bottom of the eighth when Barrett reached on a fielder’s choice and Zach Sullivan doubled to left field. Hughston got to the ball quickly, which forced Randel to hold Barrett at third.
“The ball took one hop and hit the wall and (Hughston) fielded it cleanly,” Randel said. “When I saw that, I knew there was no chance (to score Barrett).”
Seymour tried to bunt a run home, which he did on his own, but angled it too much toward the pitcher, who threw him out to end the inning.
In the ninth, the Hoppers managed a run when Naylor reached on an error, went to third on a double by Angel Reyes and scored on Soto’s groundout to short. That tied it 1-1, but Dunbar grounded out to the pitcher to end the inning and the Hoppers never threatened in extra innings.
Gabriel Castellanos will start the third game of the series for Greensboro at 7 p.m. Saturday at NewBridge Bank Park.