No Revolting From York

By Mark Krulish on May 23, 2008

NEWARK, NJ – The Newark Bears continued their winning ways picking up their eighth victory in a row and a four-game sweep of the York Revolution. Newark overmatched York in the four game series with good starting pitching and timely hitting.

“We’re playing really well right now,” said Wayne Krenchicki. “We made a couple of mistakes defensively which we’ll have to make adjustments on, but the hitting and pitching are coming along very well.”

With an electric crowd filling up Riverfront Stadium and roaring in support of their home team, it would be the Revolution who would strike first. Keoni De Renne sent an offering from Michael Bumstead over the right-field wall for a home run in the top of the first inning.

York starter Corey Thurman was cruising along retiring the first eight Newark hitters that he faced. Then in the bottom of the third, catcher John Pachot smashed a home run down the left field line. It was his second in the last two days and third on the season.

Luis Taveras’s one-out double in the top of the fourth led to a run for the Revolution. Taveras made it home on a throwing error by third baseman Brian Burgamy. But Kevin Kotch, who hit the grounder to third, was thrown out trying to take second base on the play. Despite two singles by Enrique Cruz and Kazunori Tanaka, the Bears were able to escape down by one run.

The Bears went back ahead in the bottom of the fifth inning when Randall Simon and Val Majewski started the frame with back-to-back singles. Pachot sacrificed them over to second and third and then Simon scored on a very wild pitch by Thurman. Burgamy brought Majewski in with a double down the right field line to give Newark the 3-2 lead.

The see-saw battle continued in the top of the sixth. Bumstead got into a little more trouble after walking Jason Aspito and yielding a single to Taveras. Kotch tried to bunt them over, but Bumstead got the lead runner out at third. After striking out Cruz, he walked Tanaka and an infield single brought in Taveras. Bumstead struck out De Renne to avoid further damage and the game was left knotted at 3.

“Its frustrating when you get into those jams,” said Bumstead. “They’re tough circumstances but you have to pitch through them and we were able to make the plays when we needed to.”

As usual, the Bears offense had an answer. Cory Aldridge smoked an opposite field line drive over the bullpen gate in left to put Newark back ahead. Aldridge’s third home run of the year re-tied Pachot for the team lead who homered earlier in the game.

Little by little, the Bears broke the game open.

Newark tacked on a couple on insurance runs in their next turn at bat. An RBI single by Ramon Castro followed by a triple by Jose Herrera brought in another run to give Newark a 6-3 lead through seven.

“We’ve really swung the bat well with runners in scoring position throughout this whole streak,” said Krenchicki. “We’re getting runners on and getting big hits.”

The Bears extended the lead to 8-3 on a two-RBI double by Majewski, who continues to knock in runs at a high rate for Newark. The scoring play was set up by a lead-off single by Keith Reed followed by reliever Matt Trent issuing a free pass to Simon.

Majewski came in to score on a wild throw by the Revolution third baseman De Renne. With Pachot on first Ramon Castro ripped a double into the right-center field gap to make it 10-3.

Notes: Herrera left the game after fouling a pitch off of his right calf muscle in the eighth inning. He had ice wrapped around it after the game but said he would be fine and that it was just a little stiff. The Bears have run their record to 16-9 and are 1.5 games ahead of the Somerset Patriots in the Freedom Division. Newark and Somerset will square off in a three-game set this weekend.

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