Hoppers can’t sustain consistent offense
from Bill Hass with Bill on Baseball(Greensboro Grasshoppers) at www.gsohoppers.com
The Hoppers’ offense was gone with the wind Sunday.
After a promising start against Lexington, Greensboro was stymied by Legends pitching and wound up on the short end of a 3-2 score. The Hoppers scored twice and got four hits through the first three innings, then were shut out on one hit over the last six.
The Hoppers could not sustain any momentum from Saturday’s nine-run, 10-hit performance.
Legends left-hander Emilio Ogando settled down after a shaky start and threw four consecutive scoreless innings with his off-speed assortment.
“He took it to us when we should have been taking it to him the third time through the lineup,” said Hoppers manager Kevin Randel. “He got a lot of weak contact, weak grounders and fly balls.”
Angel Reyes drove in both Hopper runs with a groundout in the first and a double in the third. But after his double, the Hoppers didn’t get another hit until Rony Cabrera’s single in the bottom of the seventh.
They did mount a threat in the eighth against reliever Julio Pinto. Stone Garrett drew a leadoff walk and Josh Naylor popped out. Garrett was caught leaning the wrong way and was picked off for the second out. That proved costly because Reyes walked and Roy Morales was hit by a pitch. If Garrett had still been on base, the bases would have been loaded with one out. Instead, Aaron Blanton’s flyout ended the inning.
Randel said he didn’t have a problem with Naylor swinging at the first pitch and popping out, the second time he had done that during the game.
“That’s what he likes to do (swing at the first pitch) and you want to let the big fellow swing the bat,” Randel said. “I think the game situation got the best of him. He needs to be a little more disciplined and that will come with time and swinging at better pitches.”
Greensboro’s pitchers were solid. Steven Farnworth, in his second start since being moved from late relief, put up five innings and allowed two runs and six hits with no walks. He was efficient all day, throwing just 54 pitches. He is in the rotation for the time being to build up his innings so the Marlins can take a look at him in that role.
“He established his fastball down and in, got a lot of ground balls and forced some early swings,” said acting pitching coach Manny Olivera.
Jeff Kinley allowed one run in two innings and Scott Squier finished with two shutout innings.
With a stiff breeze blowing to right field, Kinley gave up a fly ball to Amalani Fukofuka in the sixth inning. The wind helped it along and the ball hit the top of the right field fence at the 327-foot marker and bounced over for a home run, which proved to be the difference in the game.
“He got hurt on a fastball over the plate on a windy day,” Randel said.
The teams play the third game of the series Monday at 7 p.m. Chuck Weaver draws the start for the Hoppers. Weaver has started four games and pitched out of the bullpen twice, with a record of 1-3 and a 1.46 ERA.
“He wants the ball in any role,” Olivera said.