Friday, July 11, 2008

ByBob Molta, Silkworms Sports Information Department

STRUGGLING SILKWORMS BLANKED BY KEENE, 8-0

They are limited to five hits by Bats in dropping sixth game in last eight

KEENE, N.H. -- With the NECBL season heading into the final third of the regular season this weekend, plenty of time remains for the Manchester Silkworms to play themselves into a Southern Division playoff berth.

And also enough time to play themselves out.

Friday night, the Silkworms continued their recent downward spiral, collecting only five hits and losing for the sixth time in eight games in an 8-0 inter-divisional loss to the Keene Swamp Bats before a reported crowd of 2,406 at Alumni Field.

With 15 games remaining in the 42-game regular season, Manchester (11-16) remains a half-game out of the fourth and final playoff spot in the Southern Division. Four of the six teams in the division lost Friday night, including three of the four teams (Manchester, Torrington and Danbury) gunning for the final playoff spot. North Adams picked up a game in the standings and moved 1 ½ games ahead of Manchester with a 7-3 win over Lowell.

The Silkworms remain a half-game behind fourth place Torrington (which has played five less game), which dropped an 8-2 decision to visiting Pittsfield. Divisional cellar-dweller Danbury, which moved to within four games of Manchester with its 7-2 win over the Silkworms Thursday night, lost a 6-3 decision to Holyoke Friday night.

The loss to Keene (17-9) is Manchester’s third by shutout in the last five games and gives the Swamp Bats a split in the season series with the Silkworms. Behind Matt O’Brien (Hingham, MA/Holy Cross), Manchester blanked Keene, 4-0, June 20 at Northwest Park.

“It’s a bad stretch right now,” admitted manager Al Leyva afterward. “We’re working hard, but we’re not pitching (well), hitting well, or playing defense, and we’ve got to do two of those three things well to win a ballgame, and we’re not doing that right now. Hopefully, hard work will pay off and we’ll get hot at the right time, but that time is drawing really close. We need,” said Leyva, “to start getting some wins.”

The offerings of lefty Mike Anarumo (Levittown, NY/Le Moyne), described as “probably having the freshest arm on the staff” by Leyva as justification for giving him his first start of the season, kept Manchester within striking distance through four innings Friday night, but lost his effectiveness in rapid order in the fifth. The first five batters of the inning reached safely with hits – two home runs accounting for three runs – before Anarumo was lifted in favor of righty Andrew Janiga (Ellington, CT/Trinity) and the Silkies out of contention, 7-0.

A recent signee, Janiga retired three of the four batters that he faced in the fifth inning, and was equally effective over the next two innings in his fifth appearance. Janiga’s three-inning scoreless stint was a bright spot for Manchester in a game which featured little else in the way of positives.

Five of Keene's runs in the game came on home runs -- a two-run home run by Dan Petro in the first , a leadoff homer by Franco Valdes leading off the fifth, and a two-run home run by Cliff Hicks in the fifth. With three home runs, Keene pulls even with Newport for the NECBL team lead with 22 roundtrippers (Manchester has hit five).
 
Making his first start for Keene after being released from the Cape Cod League this week, righty Miguel Valcarcel (1-0) gave up only two hits over the first six innings, fanning five and walking one. Manchester managed only three hard-hit balls in the game, two by No. 3 hitter Matt Grosso (Marlborough, CT/Notre Dame). Grosso hammered a one-out, opposite-field double in the fourth with the Silkworms trailing 2-0, and also flew out to the warning track for the final out of the sixth. The other well-struck ball was delivered by No. 5 hitter Michael Gallic (Tolland, CT/Marist), who had his one-out line drive stabbed by Keene second baseman Cliff Hicks with a leaping grab.

A turning point in the game might have come as early as the top of the first inning. With two out and a runner on second in a scoreless game, Grasso battled Valcarcel in an eight-pitch at-bat before eventually being called out on strikes by home plate umpire Mike Noeth. It was only the 11th strikeout of the season for Grasso, who has whiffed the least number of times of any regular.

“Matt had no chance on any of those three (strikes), in my opinion,” opined Leyva. “He had the bat taken away from him right there. Nobody in their right mind would have swung at those. The strike zone was really big (throughout the game), but we had to make that adjustment, because, unfortunately, he’s (Noeth) the one calling balls and strikes.”

In the game, all five of Valcarcel’s strikeout victims were retired with the bat on their shoulders.

Both teams entered play having loss three of their last four, with two of both clubs’ losses coming at the hands of Southern Division leader Newport. Dan Grovatt and Danny Petro, batting 1-2 in the lineup, each had three hits and combined to score five runs and drive in four for Keene, which ranks second in the league in team batting.

Righty Brian Pendergast (Unionville, CT/Manhattan) is expected to make his fifth start of the season Saturday when the Silkies visit North Adams for a key divisional matchup. In his last start last Monday, Pendergast (1-4, 2.54) pitched into the ninth inning in a 1-0 loss at Newport.

Keene Swamp Bats 8, Manchester Silkworms 0

Manchester (11-16)                 000      000      000      --         0          5          3
Keene (17-9)                           200      050      01x      --        8          13        0

Mike Anarumo (1-1), Andrew Janiga (5), J.J. Potrikus (9) and Mike Bourdon. Miguel Valcarcel (1-0), David Colvin (7) and Dan Petro. Save-Colvin (3). 2B-Matt Grosso (M), Dan Grovatt, Petro (K); HR-Petro (6), Cliff Hicks (2), Franco Valdes (2) (K).