Beyond the Box Score: ValleyCats 1, IronBirds 0

After Sunday night's slugfest, the IronBirds and ValleyCats took game two in an entirely different direction. The game was highlighted by the pitching duel between Tri-City's Troy Scribner, arguably the best pitcher in the NY-Penn League, and IronBirds' starter Stephen Tarpley.

In Sunday's game, there were only two full innings in which neither team registered a run. Last night, only one run was scored, and that happened in the seventh when Max Schuh walked the batter with the bases loaded. It truly was a flipping of the scripts.

Through six innings, each pitcher had allowed only two hits apiece. This performance was nothing new for Scribner, who has the NY-Penn League's second best ERA (0.77) while pitching 47 innings and notching a league-best 57 strikeouts. He finished the night pitching seven innings while giving up only three hits and recording seven K's.

Tarpley, on the other hand, has had an up and down season. At 1-2, Tarpley has a 4.67 ERA, but he's been hot as of late. He set a career high in strikeouts (7) while going six innings and giving up two runs off of four hits in his last outing, a 7-6 win over Brooklyn on July 22. Last night, he went 6.1 innings while allowing only four hits and zero runs - shutting out the league's best hitting team.

"I just started relaxing a little bit and took my mind off the stats and trying to do good rather than just executing pitches and letting the stats fall," Tarpley said of his recent hot streak. "I'm going to work on more sequences and try to work ahead of the count - that's my main focus right now, but that comes with a lot of mental and physical preparation as well so I just got to keep preparing like it's my last game and keep moving forward."

Although they managed 12 hits in Sunday's matchup, the IronBirds could only manage three hits in last night's game. Troy Scribner had himself a career night-at the IronBirds' expense.

"I think tonight you really just have to tip your hat to that kid [Scribner]," hitting coach Scott Thomas said. "Especially starting off from the first inning on. He was throwing breaking balls, changeups - there was no going right after hitters and it was tough for us to make some adjustments early on in the game. But like I said you just have to tip your hat to him. He made good pitches and kept us off-balance all night."

Although the hitting has been inconsistent, the pitching has remained on-point, as the IronBirds have the fifth-best average ERA in the NY-Penn League at 3.41 - at no point have they fallen out of the top five in pitching. As long as the pitching is there the IronBirds will keep games close as they wait for the clutch hitting to come around - something the team has proven to be more than capable of this season.

(Photo of Stephen Tarpley by Bob and Corey Rinker)