Brooklyn Cyclones Steamroll Staten Island Yankees

From the desks of:  

THE SURF AVENUE SLUGGERS  and  THE HYLAN BOULEVARD RATS

BATTLE of the BOROUGHS

GAME ONE

Brooklyn Cyclones      11

Staten Island Yankees  4

FINAL

Brooklyn wallops the Yankees at the Ballpark at St. George to square up their season series with Staten Island at three.

The surging Yankees waste no time putting Brooklyn at a disadvantage.  With two on and two outs in the bottom half of the first inning Staten Island third baseman Mitchell Robinson doubles to left field plating both runners.  First baseman Nelson B Alvarez then grounds to second baseman Luke Ritter who mishandles the opportunity permitting Robinson to score for a 3-0 Yankees lead.  In the third inning designated hitter Jacob Sanford strokes a one out double to right, then advances to third on a wild pitch.  Isaiah Pasteur's sac-fly to center scores Sanford putting Staten Island ahead by four.

Brooklyn starter Matt Cleveland lasts 4.2 innings, allowing four runs, three earned, on four hits and two walks.  Andrew Edwards enters the game in relief of Cleveland.

The Cyclones finally break through for a run in the sixth.  Antoine Duplantis leads off with a single then scores on Jose Peroza's double to right.  Brooklyn explodes for another six runs in the seventh highlighted by a Luke Ritter RBI double, a two RBI double from Jose Peroza, and a three run home run from Joe Genord.  The sudden onslaught continues in the eighth.  Jose Peroza works out a bases loaded walk against Yankees reliever Wellington Diaz.  Joe Genord then clears the bases with a double to left.

Jose Peroza and Joe Genord account for ten of the Cyclones eleven runs batted in.

Andrew Edwards departs after 2.1 innings of scoreless no-hit baseball with two walks and three strikeouts.  Manager Alonzo hands off to Jared Biddy in the eighth whom obliges with another two scoreless innings of one hit ball with two strikeouts.  Edwards is awarded his second victory of the season to go along with a 2.42 ERA.

Yankees starter Anderson Munoz yields no runs on four hits and two walks through 3.2 innings but does not factor in the decision.  The bullpen however yields all eleven runs on nine hits and five walks with five strikeouts through 5.1 innings pitched.  Marcus Evey is tagged with a blown save and the loss.

With Sunday's victory the Cyclones improve to 31-23 (.574) with only twenty games remaining in their regular season.  However Hudson Valley sweeps a double-header from the Lowell Spinners.  Therefore despite Sunday's victory the Cyclones close the weekend 2.5 games back of first place.

McNamara Division Standings through 8/11/2019:

• Hudson Valley   34-21; *
• Brooklyn            31-23; 2.0 GB
• Aberdeen           30-26; 4.5 GB
• Staten Island     29-26; 5.0 GB

Brooklyn leads the wild card race by two games over the West Virginia Black Bears and Aberdeen Ironbirds whom Sunday handily defeat the Lake Monsters in an 11-0 whitewashing at Vermont.  Staten Island trails the wild card standings by 2.5 games.