Scranton Shuts out Indians 1-0
Published on June 1, 2011 under International League (IL1)
Indianapolis Indians News Release
INDIANAPOLIS -- After Indians starter Brian Burres and Yankees starter D.J. Mitchell each struck out five over seven shutout innings, shortstop Ramiro Pena rolled a RBI groundout with one out in the bottom of the eighth to plate the only run of the contest as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre went on to shut out Indianapolis 1-0 on Wednesday afternoon at Victory Field.
With the loss the Indians fall to 24-30 on the season, while the win improves the Yankees' record to 28-22. The victory also gives Scranton a 2-1 series and 4-3 season series lead over the Indians with the series finale set for Thursday night at 7:05 p.m.
Both starters turned in excellent efforts as each worked out of significant jams to keep the game scoreless over the first seven frames. Despite not figuring in the final decision, Burres (7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 SO) was brilliant on the afternoon holding Scranton to just three hits, while Mitchell (7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO) earned the victory to improve to 4-3 by scattering five hits and a walk over his seven shutout frames.
The Indians loaded the bases with one out in the top of the second and put runners on first and second with one out in the top of the fourth, but Mitchell induced an inning-ending double play and back-to-back pop outs to get out of both jams. On the other side, Burres worked around lead-off base knocks in the third and fourth, and a one-out double in the sixth with a clutch pickoff and key strikeouts.
With the dominating outings from both starters, the game would head to the eighth scoreless, where LF Dan Brewer would start the eventual game-winning scoring rally with a clutch lead-off line drive double to left. DH Luis Nunez would follow with a single to push Brewer to third, where he would eventually trot home on the game-winning RBI groundout from Pena.
Pena (2-for-4, 1 RBI) was not only the Yankees' offensive star on the afternoon with two of their six hits and their lone RBI, but he also made several excellent defensive plays at short to help hold down the Tribe offense. The Indians would threaten in the ninth when 3B Andy Marte lined a lead-off double to left, however a hot shot off the bat of 1B Matt Hague found it's way into 1B Jorge Vasquez's glove and Scranton's closer Kevin Whelan closed the door from there to give the Yankees the 1-0 win.
Whelan (1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 SO) worked out of the ninth inning jam to notch his International League leading 16th save of the season, while fellow reliever Randy Flores (1.0 IP, 1 SO) bridged the gap with a perfect eighth to pick up his third hold on the year.
Both Marte (2-for-3) and Hague (2-for-4) posted multi-hit efforts for the Tribe, while LF Alex Presley (1-for-4) picked up his International League leading 71st hit of the season to extended his hitting streak to seven games.
Tribe reliever Tony Watson (0.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER) suffered the loss to fall to 2-3 on the season after allowing the only run of the contest on two hits in just 0.1 innings. Despite surrendering the RBI groundout to Pena, Indians closer Tim Wood (1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 SO) pitched well out of the bullpen allowing just one hit over 1.2 innings of work.
Indianapolis now wraps up their series with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. LHP Justin Wilson will look to give the Tribe the series split when he takes to the mound, while RHP Andrew Brackman is scheduled to be hill for the Yankees.
The contest will be carried on WNDE 1260 AM, WNDE.com and via iheartradio, a mobile application for iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones, while also being broadcast live on Comcast and Bright House Networks digital channel 81 with Howard Kellman and Scott McCauley on the call. The pre-game show begins at 6:45 p.m.
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Post-game quotes -- LHP Brian Burres
(on his seven innings of shutout ball) "I had a good mix of all four pitches and I kept the ball down for the most part. Usually when I start getting in trouble is when the ball starts getting elevated and I start giving up homers. I could pretty much throw any of my four pitches at any time so that helped to keep the hitters off-balance."
(on the solid defense behind him) "It's huge. When your defense is playing really good, it just gives you more and more confidence to commit to a pitch. Even if it is the wrong pitch and they hit it hard, you know the guys behind you are going to make the plays. It's a big confidence builder and a huge thing for the team when everybody is playing real good like that."
(on the importance of splitting the series tomorrow) "We need to get every win we can from now on. We dug ourselves a bit of a hole here so it's big. You'd like to take three out of four but now that that's out of the picture, you've got to win two out of the four games and hopefully some more in the next series."
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- Scranton Shuts out Indians 1-0 - Indianapolis Indians
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