FSL1 Jupiter Hammerheads

Walks, Balks, and Rulebooks Do In Hammerheads 5-2

Published on June 16, 2010 under Florida State League (FSL1)
Jupiter Hammerheads News Release


While the team was mired in its 15-game losing streak earlier this season, the Hammerheads must have thought they had found every way to drop a game. But none of those games came close to Wednesday night's affair, in which Jupiter fell 5-2 despite only giving up one RBI hit.

Instead, the Charlotte Stone Crabs seemed to find every conceivable way to plate runners without putting wood on the ball. Jupiter went up 1-0 in the 4th inning when Daniel Pertusati scored Jake Smolinski. From there, Charlotte began its array of atypical RBIs. In the 5th, with the Roger Dean Stadium crowd already booing a series of close ball-four calls that loaded the bases, umpires called a balk on starter Brad Hand, tying the game.

The following inning, Charlotte's Stephen Vogt led off with a triple, coming home on Henry Wrigley's single for the Stone Crabs' only run-scoring hit of the night. Another single would knock Hand out of the game, to be replaced by Chris Leroux of the Florida Marlins. The rehabbing righty allowed another single, loading the bases.

That set the stage for perhaps Charlotte's most unusual RBI. Reid Fronk sent a high foul ball towards the Hammerheads dugout. Smolinski followed the ball from third base, drifting closer and closer to the dugout stairs before finally reaching out and making a spectacular catch that sent the stadium into a frenzy. Unfortunately, it also took Smolinski into the dugout, which forced the umpires to invoke rule 7.04(c), which was amended in 2007 to state that "If a fielder, after having made a legal catch, should fall ... into the dugout or any other out-of-play area while in possession of the ball after making a legal catch, ... the ball is dead and each runner shall advance one base...." With the bases loaded, that meant one of the most terrific plays made by the Hammerheads this season also drove in a run against them.

The Hammerheads would cut the lead to just one run on Ernesto Manzanillo's third hit of the game, a triple to score Pertusati. But even in the late innings, the Stone Crabs found ways to plate runs without hitting. In the 8th, Leroux hit and walked the first two batters he faced, causing them to be the last two he faced as well, as he was lifted for reliever Peter Andrelczyk. Andrelczyk didn't have much more luck, allowing the runners to advance on a wild pitch, intentionally walking Fronk, and then walking in a run.

A sacrifice fly in the 9th would cap the scoring for Charlotte, while reliever Josh Satow tossed two no-hit innings to prevent a Hammerhead rally from getting off the ground.

Instead Jupiter will hit the road in hopes of finding its first post-All Star Game win. The team travels to the west coast for seven games in six days, with a three-game series at Bradenton followed by four in Charlotte.

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Florida State League Stories from June 16, 2010


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