Thursday Rock Cats Report: A Game That Got Away

After collecting 4 hits in consecutive games,
Rock Cats catcher Chris Herrmann couldn't tripilicate
the feat yesterday.

Every Wednesday night I write a recap of all the happenings in the Twins minor league system for TwinsDaily. You can find last night's recap here. Here's what I wrote about the Rock Cats' loss to the Binghamton Mets:

New Britain 1, Binghamton 8Today's game was quite a test for the Rock Cats, facing top Mets pitching prospect Zack Wheeler. He routinely hits 97 with the fastball, and probably won't be too long for AA. He looked good against New Britain this afternoon, throwing 8 innings and allowing 2 hits and 1 run. But David Bromberg, starting for the Rock Cats, also had a solid performance, going 6 strong innings, striking out 8, walking 3 and giving up just 1 run on 4 singles. Blake Martin relieved Bromberg, tossing a scoreless 7th and walking 1 batter. He gave up 1 hit to lead off the 8th before being removed in favor of Luis Perdomo. Then things got ugly. Perdomo walked one, but the Mets scored twice following a sacrifice bunt, a single, and a Danny Lehmann throwing error. Brett Jacobson threw 2/3 of the 9th, issued 5 walks and gave up 5 runs (2 earned) -- a 3-run home run and a bases-loaded walk. Bobby Lanigan came on to get the last out in the 9th, which he did after hitting a batter with the bases loaded to bring in the Mets' 8th run (charged to Jacobson). Martin ended up with the loss. To sum up: starting pitching was good; the bullpen wasn't.

There wasn't much offense to speak of for the Rock cats. Minnesota's own Nathan Hanson had an RBI single in the 5th to score Aaron Hicks, who had walked and stolen second (stolen base #13 for Hicks). Reversing a recent trend, Chris Herrmann did not get 4 hits today, but he did coax a walk out of Wheeler. Danny Lehmann had a double.

Here's the link to the box score.

There isn't much time to dwell on this ugly loss, though. The team plays bright and early today -- 10:35 a.m. to be precise. Two recent AA call-ups, B.J. Hermsen for the Rock Cats and Jenrry Mejia for the Mets, will face each other. A win today would give New Britain 3 of 4 in this series. Going into today's game, New Britain has a 1.5 game lead in their division.

Don't forget to check back for more updates later!