In their first home series of the year, the Vero Beach Bums split a pair
of games with division rival Binghamton. In the home opener, the Bums
satisfied their hometown fans as well as visiting Beach Bums with a 3-0
win.
Bums pitcher Willie Adams pitched 7 2/3 excellent innings, striking
out seven and giving up just 4 hits and one walk. The Vero Beach starters
have been so good so far this season that their right-handed relief
pitchers have only pitched 2 innings in 9 games.
Chuck Carr went 3 for 4 on the day with a stolen base (and the first
unsuccessful stolen base attempt of the year for the Bums) but did not
contribute to the run-scoring effort. Marquis Grissom had the Bums' lone
RBI on a seventh-inning single. The other two runs, although they were
earned runs, were deemed "scored by magic" and thus no Bum was given an
RBI for either.
In the second game, it was Binghamton's turn to shut out the Bums. The
Mets won 2-0 behind the strong start of Frank Rodriguez. In seven
innings, he gave up only four hits and struck out 6 Bums. Orlando
Hernandez, pitching for the second time, had a better game than his first.
Hernandez gave up 2 runs in 7 2/3 innings to take the loss. Angel Miranda
pitched yet again in relief. "He's going to go a lot of innings for us,"
said manager Phil Garner. "Left-handed relievers are quite a commodity,
and Angel's a pretty good one."
The Bums only managed four hits in the entire game, and just one
extra-base hit -- a double from Brian Jordan. The Bums have produced
relatively few runs this season -- just 32 runs in nine games, or 3.56
runs/game. Last season, the Bums scored 907 runs in 162
regular-season games, or an average of 5.6 runs/game.
"Sure, our production's off a bit, but we've faced mostly Binghamton, who
still has a pretty good pitching staff. Once we start getting some games
against Duluth and Sacramento, we'll score some runs," said Garner. "I
think we're going to win a lot more games on pitching, baserunning, and
defense than on clubbing homers this year."
