For the first time in Jersey Shore's history they were putting on the uniforms in the month of October. In the visitor's clubhouse at CNE Stadium in Toronto wasn't home but this was the postseason. "You could tell there were nerves in the air," SS Marvin Taylor proclaimed, "this is a fun loving bunch and before the game the only one yappin' like usual was Al (Ryan). For the majority of this team this was their first postseason experience. Their draw as the wild card was to take on the #1 seed in the CL, 110 win Toronto, which was second only to the mighty Hitmen in all of the BSA. It is a 7 game series, but the first game was the first punch, who would land it?
The veteran Ricky Bolden would get the start for TOR who was making his 22nd all time playoff appearance and 7th BSA playoff start. Dan Macias would get the start for Jersey marking his first BSA playoff start. He previously had playoff experience in '09 and '07 before the VBL-BSA take over. After getting out of a 1st inning jam, disaster struck in the 2nd. With runners on 1st and 2nd, Toronto SS Jordi Overbeek smashed a line drive between SS and 3B. Using cat like reflexes 3B Adam Morrow dove back into the hole and made a spectacular catch for the first out of the inning. Sighs of relief came from the Jersey dugout until they noticed Morrow struggling to get up. Trainers immediately rushed onto the field and helped him up. Morrow obviously in pain grasping at his left shoulder as he was taken out of the game. We would learn after the game the diagnosis: separated shoulder: recovery time, one month. A blow to the offense. In the last 3 weeks Jersey has lost both Adam Morrow and Peter Larson who ranked 2nd and 4th in the CL in OBP and were the team's lethal 1-2 on base machines in front of the big boys in Bryant and Doyle. A big loss. Things didn't get better from there, a 3 run 3rd inning capped off by a Ben Moss 2-run HR would all that Ricky Bolden would need as he cruised through 6 innings giving up 2 runs on 3 hits while striking out 7. A triple by Maximo Zargoza in the 6th would make the score 4-1 and essentially chase Macias from the game. Jersey had a chance in the 7th after Ryan reached on an error, Ryan Cole replaced Bolden. He got a K, gave up a BB and big RBI 2B by Marvin Taylor to put 2 runners in scoring position with the tying run on 2nd base with only 1 out. He would get Alberto Perez and Jose Ortiz to fly out and the Bags never threatened again, dropping Game 1, 4-2.
Game 2 started differently, a double, wild pitch and a sac fly put the Bags up a run after only producing one out, but that's where the good fortunes would end. Starter Jerry Burgess would give back 3 runs in the bottom half on a handful of hits and Jose Brito would do the rest. He was brilliant in his 7 IP, allowing 6 D-Bags hits, the 1 run, 1 BB and 6 K's. A Ben Moss solo HR in the 4th would make it 4-1 and Toronto added 3 more in the 7th to chase Burgess taking a 7-1 lead. Toronto's bullpen would work 2 perfect innings to shut the door, giving the home team the 2-0 advantage.
The good news was that the series would head to Jersey. The bad news was the offense was struggling,badly. 3 runs on 11 hits over 2 games. The deadly duo of Bryant/Doyle had combined to go 3/15 without an extra base hit or and RBI. Jersey played a lot better at home all season long, playing almost .700 baseball there. Art Ellis would be on the mound, he had an ERA of 2.28 at home this season, something had to give, and it did. Jersey nearly equaled their hit total from the first two games and Art Ellis pitched a gem leading Jersey to their first ever playoff win in front of a crowd of 40,000+. It was a tight game most of the way through but Ellis refused to let Toronto back in, or even on base if he could. He gave up 3 hits through 7 innings, 2 being solo HR's by Rivas and Crowe which would be all the offense the Titans would generate. The Jersey offense took every advantage to score runs. They plated runs on a double play, wild pitch, walk and then finally on Mike Bryant's 2 run HR that put the game away for good. It was the first HR of the series for Jersey and Bryant's first RBI as well. Being down in a series 2-1 sure looks better than 2-0. Jersey is still in this thing.
We now will go live as GM Josh Swain's press conference is just getting under way:
Reporter Sally Trumpert, Trenton Free Press: "Mr. Swain, please give us thoughts on the loss of Adam Morrow."
Swain: "Losing Adam is big. After Pete went down we were relying on Adam to be our spark plug, our table setter. The kid is a hustler, first in-last out type of kids, really sucks to lose him. That first game, which was tough enough already playing a team like Toronto in front of that raucous crowd and facing that all-star studded lineup, but as they helped Adam off the field it was like a punch in the gut that took the air out of the sails. We will move on and the combination of Perez-Taylor on the left hand side of the infield will do fine, but we will miss the boy on the field."
Beat writer Sam Toddenfield, BSAreport.com: "You were criticized and 2nd guessed for starting Burgess Game 2 and waiting to use Ellis in Game 3. We know how it turned out, have anything to add now and would you change anything?"
Swain: "No. I will stand by that decision. I know Burgess had struggled in much of September, but he had been good in Toronto. We wanted Ellis at home. Look, even if Ellis would have been on the mound for game 2 he would have had to been perfect. We scored 1 run. Brito was excellent that day. We were hoping that either Macias or Burgess could lead us to a win and Ellis could put us up in the series pitching Game 3. You need offense to win games fellas and I still feel it was the right choice."
Reporter Dan Miles, NY Times: "With the struggles of the offense, will there be changes for Games 4 and 5?"
Swain: "What do you expect me to do? Yes, we had to make changes to the lineup to compensate for Morrow, but other than that it's all about timely hitting. Yes, we haven't had that many hits, but when we have had opportunities, we haven't taken advantage. We need to score those runners from 3rd with less than 2 outs, 1 clutch hit in game 1 and we had a tie game. Game 3 should have been a blow out, so many runners left in scoring position. The hits will fall. We had the bases juiced with 1 out and had Bryant and Doyle coming up and we scored 1 run when Doyle was walked. How often is that going to happen? The lineup will be much of the same, but look for Foster to get the start in CF in Game 4. Last question."
Reporter Vanessa Antuaco, Morgantown Today: "What are the keys for your team for the rest of the series, how do the D-Bags pull this out?"
Swain: "Like I said before, some clutch hitting, we won't win games scoring 3 or less runs against this team. The bullpen needs to stay strong, they have been nearly perfect thus far and need to keep that up. Also we need to get on the board early and keep their starters pitch counts high. Bolden only lasted 6 innings last time and is coming back on short rest, we need to get into that bullpen which we have had success against. We need another quality start. We will be going with Dan in Game 4 and we need a big time Macias start. Evening up the series 2-2 with one more game at home would be huge. Thank you for your time and questions, hopefully we can have another one of these after the series.....a winning series. ;)"
Thus far the starters have given up all 13 runs in the series. The bullpen like Swain mentioned has in fact almost been perfect. In 5.2 IP they have surrendered 2 hits, 1 walk while striking out 7. Dog Pound Gomes is the only reliever to be in more than 1 game and he has seen all 3. He came into Game 3 in the 8th to strike out Cuan and Rivas back to back to end the 8th, the only 2 batters he faced.
Game 4:
SP Dan Macias
RF Scott Powers
DH Jose Ortiz
C Luis Antonio Duran
2B Mikey Bryant
1B Matt Doyle
LF Al Ryan
3B Alberto Perez
CF Leon Foster
SS Marvin Taylor
Rob Goodship is more than likely going to be the starter in Game 5. Jersey was waiting to see how rested Jerry Burgess will be, but based on his first start it might not matter. Toronto will see one of the lefties in Game 5. That is all from the Bag Report, we wish the D-Bags luck!
GO D-BAGS
MR Bernardo Pacheco (AAA): 1-0, 1 save, 0.63 ERA, 1.12 WHIP. While pitching mainly middle relief and set up for Tuscaloosa, Pacheco was money in his 14.1 IP in August. He allowed 1 ER, which was on a solo HR and tallied 13 K to only 3 BB. Pacheco, 28, is in his 4th year at AAA and each year his ERA has gotten lower. He will be 29 next year, and if he becomes a minor league free agent, he could catch on somewhere and help a bullpen.
1B Tadahisa Kisuki (AA): .408/.487/.582. 3 HR, 27 RBI, 40 hits. Signed in April 2015 out of the free agent pool, the 20 year old is really picking it up since he his subpar play in A ball last year. He crushed A pitching this year, and August was his best month playing in AA Gainesville. While he doesn't hit for a lot of power, the gap is there totally 37 2B between the two levels while hitting over .350. There's a good chance he will get the promotion to AAA before the year is over. At only 20 years old the kid could see the show before a lot of players his age are even out of college.
