By Sean Hatchard
Canadaeast News Service
MONCTON - Moncton Mets had been idle for three and a half weeks before their New Brunswick Senior Baseball League playoff opener last night and it showed.
The Mets managed only four hits and had just one base runner reach as far as second base in a 2-0 loss to the Charlottetown Islanders in the first game of their semifinal series in front of a crowd of over 600 at Kiwanis Park.
Moncton last played Aug. 8, coincidently enough a 3-0 win over Charlottetown in its regular season finale to earn second place and a bye to the semifinals. The Mets have been waiting for the completion of quarter-final series and the Fredericton Royals’ trip to the Canadian senior baseball championship last week before starting their playoffs.
Moncton was stymied by Charlottetown ace Morgan Carlile, who allowed just four singles over 6 1/3 innings before Alex Abbott came on to record the final two outs in the seventh.
Game 2 in the best-of-seven series goes tonight at 7:30 in Charlottetown with Game 3 back at Kiwanis Park Sunday at 2 p.m.
Mets head coach Glenn Burt acknowledged the rust factor last night.
“For sure, for sure, it was a long layoff for us. We’ll take it the way it was and it will be a different game (tonight),” he said.
Carlile, who has been hampered by arm injury issues lately, showed no signs of that last night. The former New York Mets draft pick was never in a jam and he let his infield do much of the work with 10 groundouts on the evening.
“My arm felt really good for the first five innings and then I started to slow down towards the end and I figured we should get the closer in there,” said the 24-year-old left-hander who recorded three strikeouts and no walks.
“I’m not an overpowering pitcher — I never have been — so I have to have two or three good pitches I can throw for strikes. I just wanted to keep them off balance and I got great defence behind me.”
Burt knows that four hits won’t cut it in the playoffs.
“(Carlile) is a good pitcher. You’ve got to give him credit, he’s their No. 1. He’s got three good pitches — a good fastball, a great changeup and a good curveball — and when he’s on, he really keeps you off balance,” the coach said.
“(But) we just have to start hitting again. We have to get base runners on to make things happen.”
The Islanders finished with only two runs, but constantly threatened Mets pitcher Myckie Lugbauer. Charlottetown had at least one batter reach base in every inning.
Charlottetown got on the board in the third inning. After Lugbauer struck out leadoff man Jeremy McKinnon, Andrew Macdonald reached on a fielding error by second baseman Andrew Rinzler, an error that would loom large.
After Temple Macdonald followed with a walk and Sean Corcoran struck out, Kyle Dougan, a .111 hitter during the regular season, smashed a line drive up the middle — it nearly hit Lugbauer on the mound — to drive in Andrew Macdonald from second base to grab a 1-0 lead.
The Islanders added an insurance run in the seventh when Andrew Macdonald scored again, this time on a sacrifice fly by Corcoran, the first batter that Mets reliever Steve Aube faced.
Lugbauer, an import catcher who also pitches gave up two runs on five hits over six plus innings, struck out eight batters, but also battled control problems with seven walks. He had just 16 walks in 38.1 innings in the regular season.
“Our approach once we realized he was struggling to find the plate was to make him throw as many pitches as we could. Lugbauer is a good catcher and has a strong arm, but if he can’t find the plate, we want him to throw a lot of pitches and hopefully wear him down. He still did good and competed well, but we came away with the win,” said Carlile, who went 5-2 with a 1.44 earned run average during the regular season.
“We wanted to come out of the gates hot and take the first game on Moncton’s field. This was a big win for us.”
Moncton’s best shot at scoring came in the sixth inning when Rinzler led off with a single and advanced to second base on a sac bunt by Craig Betts. The next batter, Larson Platt, hit a comebacker back to Carlile and the Islanders tagged Rinzler out in a rundown between second and third.
(Times Transcript)
