Sports

MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL Championship season ends with loss to Sacramento

LARRY BUMP For The Times Leader

OKLAHOMA CITY – Ian Kennedy began this season in the New York Yankees’ rotation, and might have ended it where he might have hoped, playing for a championship.

Neither the result nor the venue was what Kennedy might have anticipated. He was the starting and losing pitcher as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees dropped a 4-1 decision to Sacramento Tuesday. With it, the River Cats won their second consecutive Triple-A championship at Bricktown Ballpark.

“I was disappointed,” Kennedy said. “It was such a good year, and I wanted to finish it on a good note. These guys were great. I wanted to win it for them.”

Sacramento from the Pacific Coast League defeated Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s first International League Governors’ Cup winners in the Bricktown Showdown.

Kennedy was a first-round draft pick by New York in 2006. He went 13-3 between the minors and majors last year, but struggled to an 0-4 record with the Bronx Bombers this season. Sent down to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, he was 5-3 during the regular season. Then Kennedy was charged with two of their three playoff losses.

Against Sacramento, he gave up three runs in the first inning but no others during five innings on the mound. He allowed seven hits and one walk while striking out seven.

The first inning contained most of the game’s offensive action.

The Yankees loaded the bases after their first two batters were retired. Juan Miranda doubled to right field, Sacramento starter Brad Knox walked Shelley Duncan and Ben Broussard reached on an infield single. Shortstop Gregorio Petit made a diving, backhand stop to keep the ball in the infield and prevent a run from scoring.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre nearly scored four runs, but Matt Carson flied out to center fielder Carlos Gonzalez on the warning track in front of the 400-foot sign.

Carson said, “I h it one in batting practice and didn’t hit it that good, but it went out to center. I thought this one was going to be halfway up the hill (behind the fence). When I saw (Gonzalez) turn around, I wondered what was going on.

“When I went out in the field,” the center fielder continued. “I could just feel the wind blowing on the back of my neck.”

Instead of a 4-0 lead for the Yankees, the game was scoreless when the River Cats came to bat.

Chris Denorfia led off against Kennedy with a double that bounced over third baseman Eric Duncan’s head and into the left field corner. Denorfia scored on Wes Bankston’s one-out single. Brooks Conrad followed with a single that drove in Gonzalez, who had walked. Bankston scored when Casey Rogowski beat shortstop Ramiro Pena’s double-play relay throw to first base. Instead of 4-3 Yankees, it was 3-0 River Cats.

Kennedy said, “I didn’t get ahead of guys. You have those innings like that. You just have to throw it out like it’s a brand-new game, and keep your team in the game.”

He did that, pitching scoreless ball for four more innings before he left with seven hits and one walk allowed while striking out seven.

Manager Dave Miley said, “He’s pitched well for us, especially in the playoffs. You look at his numbers in those games (both losses for Kennedy), and they were good enough to win.”

Kennedy said he could sum up his season in two words: “learning process.

“I had to do that in college a little bit, and this year at the highest level I had to learn and adjust. This year I wasn’t doing much different from last year (when he was 13-3 in the minors and majors), but that’s the way the sport is.”

Neither he nor Miley would say the Yankees will be recalling Kennedy.

Steven Jackson relieved Kennedy, and gave up the River Cats’ fourth run in the sixth on Donnie Murphy’s second double of the game.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre finally scored in the seventh inning against hard-throwing Henry Rodriguez. Carson led off with a walk, advanced to second base when Chris Stewart walked and scored on a single by Pena, making his Triple-A debut.