Concordia loses out on valuable points in loss to McGill
The Concordia Stingers miniature two-game winning streak came to an end by losing 6-0 to the hands of their cross-town rivals, the McGill Redmen. The Canadian Collegiate Baseball Association game was played at Gary Carter Field in Cote Saint-Luc.
Concordia’s Shane Mullen pitched a solid game, but didn’t have a lot of help behind him. He went six innings, allowing seven hits with three strikeouts in the loss. McGill’s pitcher Adriano Petrangelo got the win as he pitched a complete game, allowing only three hits and one walk. He also had eight strikeouts, seven where he caught the Stingers batters looking.
The Stingers made an error on the opening play, which was then followed up by McGill’s Tyler Welence making them pay with an RBI double. Concordia tried to answer back right away in their home half of the inning. Robert Zapata and Matthew Litwin started things off with back-to-back singles, trying to get after Petrangelo early like they did in their previous encounter.
Petrangelo would get out of it this time around all by himself with consecutive strikeouts, with the Stingers stranding a runner on third base.
The second inning would prove to be costly for the Stingers. A hit batter, wild pitch and two errors mixed with timely hitting from the Redmen would give them a five run outburst, putting Concordia down 6-0. The Stingers would only allow three hits after that for the remainder of the game, but the damage was already done. McGill would cruise for the most part from great pitching by Petrangelo and reliable defence, going on a stretch of retiring 10 out of 11 batters at one point.
The closest Concordia came to a rally was in the bottom half of the fifth. Jonathan Raftus got things started with a one out single that seemed to get the players in the dugout fired up. Alex Hall would then get on base by taking a pitch to the shoulder. Vito Pagliuca then came up to bat and worked a walk, the only one Petrangelo would allow all game. That would load the bases for their leadoff hitter Robert Zapata.
He struck-out looking on a questionable and controversial strike three pitch. Matthew Litwin would pop out to the centerfielder to end the inning. Petrangelo would shut the door the remainder of the game, striking out three of the last seven batters he faced. Pitching and defence made the difference.
Four out of Concordia’s seven mistakes ended up costing them runs. The Stingers weren’t able to get too many men on base. When they would put the ball in play the Redmen players were there on a regular basis to make the play.
The loss brings the Stingers season record to 7-3, and they’re still searching for their first win vs the Redmen this season. McGill has won six games in a row and the result from the game now puts both teams in a tie atop the CCBA Northern Division standings.