Guardians Baseball Insider

April 30, 2013

On this Tuesday afternoon in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the Clippers were looking to salvage a split in their annual visit to New England. They succeeded in this quest. Little did they know, however, how long it would take them to do so.

The Clippers rallied back from a 4-0 deficit to the Red Sox after three innings with a lengthy comeback capped by a RBI single off the bat of SS Ryan Rohlinger which scored 2B Cord Phelps to tie the game at five runs apiece in the top of the ninth, Fibve innings of scoreless baseball ensued, including the second of two scoreless frames from Kyle Landis, a pair by Preston Guilmet, a solid 13 the by major league veteran David Huff, and a dicey 14th inning by Jerry Gil that saw the Pawsox get a runner in scoring position with only one out on a double by some guy named Jackie Bradley Jr. (I wonder whatever happened that to guy.).

C Chris Wallace (not to be confused with the FOX News Sunday host) started the top of the 15th off uneventfully with a grounder to the mound. Then the fun began. LF Tim Fedroff got a ground ball through the right side of the field for a one-out double. DH Matt Lawson sent a ball into left to put Fedroff 90 feet from tying the game. Re-enter Phelps…

Cord, who scored the tying run five innings earlier hit a fly ball deep to center field and…caught by Ronald Bermudez. The ball was deep enough, however, to score Tim on a sac fly and give the Clippers their first lead of the game. Gil would stay in the game to pitch a far less dramatic frame than his previous one, striking out the first two hitters in a perfect 15th that earned him his third individual victory of the season. At 4:45 PM, the noon start was finally over and the Clippers could get on the bus for the long trip home to Columbus, a trip made easier by both the getaway day start time and a travel day to start the Month of May.

Other than the aforementioned Bradley, the other notable name in this game was Columbus starter Carlos Carrasco, who struggled through three innings, getting the Clips into the aforementioned 4-0 hole in an effort uncharacteristic of an April that saw him start the season with 14.2 scoreless innings in his first three outings of the campaign.

On a Current Events note, the site of this game (McCoy Stadium) and the baseball fans of Rhode Island (who ,if nothing else, got their money’s worth on that day as they saw more baseball than they would in a minor league doubleheader) would be among the biggest losers in a cancellation of the 2020 minor league season, This season was slated to be the team’s final in Pawtucket before moving to Worcester, Massachusetts in 2021. Losing a team is enough of a gut punch, not getting to say goodbye is even worse.

Finally, what is it with McCoy and long games? (For those who don’t know, the PawSox and Rochester Red Wings played a record 33 innings there in 1981.)

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Photo: (Carl Kline/MiLB.com)