Elizabethton wins Appy opener, 5-4
The league's top pitching team, the Elizabethton Twins, held off the Danville Braves, league leader in team batting (.284), home runs (72) and every other significant offensive category, by a score of 5-4 at Joe O'Brien Field Wednesday night.
The game was tense from the beginning. Danville second baseman Ovandy Suero led off the game by whiffing on a breaking ball in the dirt that would have been strike three. But the homeplate umpire called it a foul tip, and Suero wound up reaching base on a swinging strike that dribbled under Twins catcher Caleb Moore.
With leftfielder Quentin Davis at the plate, Suero stole second and reached third when Moore's throw skidded into center field. Davis then lined a single to leftfield to score Suero.
Twins starter Ryan Mullins seemed distracted. He gave up another single to league co-MVP Eric Campbell and walked the other co-MVP, Max Ramirez, to load the bases. But the 6-foot-6 left-hander recovered to strike out the next three batters swinging.
"I thought I pitched well, but my velocity wasn't there," said Mullins, whose fastball was consistently clocked in the low 90s. "I was hitting my spots pretty well. When you're throwing in the high 80s, you have to set up your pitches."
The Twins grabbed the lead in the bottom of the first with second baseman Juan Portes' two-run shot to dead center. They scored another run in the bottom of the second when an errant throw by Campbell scored rightfielder Jilmer Arratia, who led off with a double.
Mullins, meanwhile, was dealing. Mixing his fastball with a curveball and changeup, the Twins 2005 third-rounder struck out the side in the second. He gave up a solo home run to Davis in the third, but struck out the next three hitters, including Campbell and Ramirez, to close out the inning.
Through seven innings, the formidable Braves lineup looked overmatched. In his five innings of work, Mullins gave up three hits and two runs, walked three and struck out 13. "I knew I had a lot of strikeouts," said Mullins, "but I wasn't keeping count."
Twins pitching finally relented in the eighth, when reliever Johan Pino, who got the win, gave up a two-out double to Campbell. Ramirez followed with a two-run home run to right that glanced off the tool shed beyond the rightfield wall. Suddenly the Braves led 4-3.
"We try to crowd Ramirez whenever we can, and [Pino] just got the pitch up an out over the plate," said Twins manager Ray Smith. "[Ramirez] just did what he's done to plenty of other teams in this league all year long."
Danville's lead was short-lived. Portes started the Twins half of the eighth with a single. Two batters later, first baseman Eric Lis, who was named the Minnesota Twins' minor league player of the month before the game started, finally came through with a run-scoring double. Moore then drove him in with a single to left.
"I was trying to do too much in my first few at-bats," said Lis, who went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. "In that last at-bat I wanted to wait for my pitch, and [Braves reliever Nick Tisone] left a 2-1 fastball up in the zone."
The Braves made it interesting in the ninth, getting two two-out singles against righthander Tim Lahey. But Suero ended the game the same way he started it, with a strikeout -- only this time he didn't reach first base.
Smith said the Twins understood the importance of winning Game 1 with the rest of the playoffs in Danville. He said no inspirational speech was required to get the team ready. The Twins head to Danville fully aware of the challenge ahead of them, but confident their pitching can carry them through.
"Believe me, we're not getting our fingers fitted for rings," said Smith. "But it all starts with pitching, and we're confident in our pitching."
Chris Gigley is a contributor to MLB.com.