Opening Weekend Recap

What a weekend! An Opening Weekend full of surprises that a lot of us did not see coming. The weekend started off with what was thought to be a pitchers duel between Anthony Lavalley and Michael Ilyadis. Ilyadis only lasted three innings and ended up giving up eight runs before bringing in Alen Kalic. Schoonie and Lavalley paved their way to a 13-5 win with a home run a piece.

Day two began with a familiar match up between the Pirates and Yankees. And once again the Yankees bats could not come through when they needed to versus Jorge. Alen Kalic started the game, giving up 11 runs and four home runs in his first start of the year. In game two of Saturday, a duel between Michael Murray and Anthony Gadani began. The two pitched well against each other until a Kyle Girgenti three-run home run put the Pirates up 5-0 where Gadani the 12 year vet, kept the Yankees scoreless and put them at 0-3 in the standings with his 18th career shutout.

On Sunday, the highly anticipated Mets came down from the mountains of Vermont and really showed us something. In game one of their four game set that day, the Mets were supposed to play the Pilots but due to a delay, the Yankees were ready for them. Ilyadis faced off against Josh Camp. these two faced each other when Ilyadis came in relief for Anthony Lavalley this past October in Vermont. This time, Ilyadis pitched a gem giving up one run, and striking out six over five. The Yankees finally got their first win of the season with two home runs from Ilyadis. The Yankees won that game 8-1. In game two, the Pilots were ready to face the Mets….or should we say ready but not ready for patience. The Mets against Pat Lasch racked up 11 walks in three innings. This put the Mets up 13-8 with Lavalley coming in relief to keep the game close in case of a comeback. But 11 was the number in that game. Mets rookie Ethan McGuckin pitched the Mets to their first franchise win, his first win in Colonie Wiffleball, and beating Pat Lasch….and did we mention? He’s 11! Games three and four of the day for the Mets had them facing off against the Pirates. Their first game had Kyle Girgenti facing off against Tom McGuckin. The Pirates were down 3-0 until a four run inning put them up 4-3. You thought the Pirates would go to Anthony Gadani for the save in the fifth but Kyle ran into his old nemesis, ‘base on balls’. He had 9 walks given up and 5 of his 7 runs given up were “walk induced runs”. Three straight walks in the fifth led to a Josh Camp grand slam. The Mets won this game 7-4. Their second game, had Jorge against Josh Camp coming off of his first loss against the Yankees. Well he showed us in that game what he is known for. Him and Jorge battled through five with one little blip in the second inning for the Pirates. The Mets won their third straight of the day, 1-0.

The Yankees and Pilots played a game after everyone was done and Alen Kalic’s second start of the year seemed to be a batting practice for the Pilots. They “mercy’ed” the Yankees 21-2 off of 8 home runs between Lavalley and Schoonie.

The Mets set atop the league with a 3-1 record with a surprising bad start of 1-4 by the Yankees. The Pilots sit there at 2-1 and the Pirates are 2-2. The stats are up on the stat sections of the website. There will be four games this week with the postponing of the Yankees and Cubs games yesterday.