Suns recover with rain-shortened win

PITTSFIELD – The Suns are wrapping up their first month of the 2013 season with four of the next five games on the road.

At 7-7 overall, following a 1-0 rain shortened win over Seacoast on Tuesday night that ended a three-game losing streak, Manager Tom Conley’s boys of summer hosted Brockton Rox on Wednesday night before heading on the road for four straight.

Last Saturday at Wahconah Park, the baseball was flying in the late innings as the Suns battled back from a 4-1 deficit in the eighth on a mammoth moon shot off the bat of Kyle Singleton, before eventually falling to the Torrington Titans 6-4 in the ninth.

Singleton’s heroics will not be forgotten however, as he took a 1-2 fastball low and in, and golfed it over the inflatable jumbo slide in right field – clearing the old Wahconah fence at 420 feet.

“It was huge, and I was happy to bring the team back in the game,” Singleton said afterwards.

The Titans had taken an early 2-0 lead in the fourth when a simple two-out grounder to first was mishandled by starting pitcher Josh Martin – who couldn’t find the bag on the underhand pitch from the Suns’ first baseman.

Two runs ended up scoring on the play as the call from the infield umpire was late and left some confusion on the field for the Suns players.

“My big thing was I thought it was a late call and the guy came in from second – scored,” said Conley, who went on the field to argue. “I just wanted the call to be made earlier – it ended up being a big play.”

With the Titans holding onto the lead and their starting pitcher Nick Fuller (Acushnet, Mass.) cruising through the Suns batting order – allowing only an infield hit through the first six innings, the Suns crowd was eerily quiet until the seventh.

In the bottom of the seventh, Singleton again rose them out of their seats by hitting a one-out single to right followed by a Morgan Phillips walk.

Fuller’s night was done after the Phillips’ walk, as 5’4” Rhett Jones came in for relief.

The Suns responded by casting a shadow on Jones’ first pitch to Brendan Slattery, who lined a shot off the Titans’ shortstop glove to score Singleton to make it 4-1.

Singleton added to the highlights in the eighth with his three-run moon shot to tie the game at 4-4 after singles by Devon Reed and Ryan Dietrich.

“You don’t see too many no-doubters and that was scary off the bat,” Conley said of the Singleton blast. “He has that in him – he hit 16 out at school [Northeastern State University in Texas], and I don’t care where you’re playing; at any field, that’s a lot.”

The Titans did send the Pittsfield faithful home disappointed when two leadoff singles off reliever Patrick Lia coupled with two walks and three wild pitches lead to the two winning runs scoring in the top of the ninth for the 6-4 final.

“We showed some good fight coming back, it would have been real easy especially with the amount of games we played – to lose that game 4-1 but [Singleton] came up with a big hit,” Conley said.

The difference recently on the Suns slide has been their pitchers walking guys in key situations and not getting enough offense at the plate.

“Would like to see our pitchers throw more strikes and not walk guys  – offensively we are striking out too much but we have a long way to go, and it’s good to know we have [a comeback] in us,” Conley said.

Posted by Tim Davis on June 27, 2013. Filed under College Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry