Logan Taylor delivers for 51s in 3-2 win over Fresno
Call ups by the Mets and short outings by their starters have left the 51s’ bullpen taxed lately.
Reliever Logan Taylor knows this as well as anyone.
Taylor was called upon to pitch 3⅓ innings on May 5 after Corey Oswalt was knocked out of the game early. On Thursday, without a starter available, the 51s turned to Taylor to make his second spot start of the season. He delivered exactly what they needed in a 3-2 win over Fresno at Cashman Field.
“I’ve been sitting down there. I know how they feel,” Taylor said. “I know how I feel and that’s why before the game, I got with the catcher, got with the infielders and I just told them all, I was like ‘Hey, be ready because I’m just going to be pitching over the plate. They might hit a few balls hard … but I’m just going to try to keep them on the ground for the most part so even if I fall behind, even then be even more ready because I’m just going to throw something over the plate.’”
With a limited number of pitchers, Taylor didn’t want to get himself into deep counts or try to pick at the corners.
He just wanted to get outs. Fast.
“Logan pounded the zone. He had a good split today, good breaking ball,” manager Tony DeFrancesco said. “He was aggressive. That was the best I’ve seen him pitch so far. He was around the zone consistently and that’s what he needs to do if he wants to get to the big leagues.”
Taylor threw five-plus innings in his outing, giving up two runs on five hits.
“I felt like did a good job keeping the ball down and giving our defense a chance and any time someone got on, I feel like I got a ground ball except in the in the (fourth), I left a ball up and that’s just going to happen and the sixth, I kind of started to run out of gas (and) made two pitches that I wish I could have had back but I felt like overall I did pretty well today and pitched pretty deep in the game,” Taylor said.
Taylor, combined with solid performances from Drew Smith, Kyle Regnault and Jacob Rhame out of the bullpen, helped Las Vegas (13-22) overcome a costly base-running blunder.
With the game tied up in the fifth after Phillip Evans had hit a home run to leave off the inning, Las Vegas loaded the bases for Matt den Dekker.
He delivered, hitting a ball off the wall in left. Two runs scored on the play, but Patrick Biondi, who was on first base, turned back, apparently thinking the ball was caught and collided with den Dekker, who was ruled automatically out for passing him.
Instead of a bases-clearing double like it looked like it might have been, or even having two runners on and one out, the 51s instead had two out and one on. They didn’t score again in the inning.
“You try to play a perfect game. It’s very rare. There’s going to be mistakes. Mental mistakes, physical mistakes, base-running mistakes and that was a big baserunning mistake there,” DeFrancesco said. “A ball off the wall, (Biondi’s) supposed to be halfway. He went back to tag. den Dekker was doing what he’s supposed to do. They crossed paths. By rule, it’s an automatic out and it probably cost us a few runs.”
Fresno (21-14) made a costly base-running mistake of its own and thanks to 2⅓ scoreless innings from Smith, a scoreless inning from Regnault and ⅔ of an inning from Rhame, three runs were enough to prevail on the bullpen night.
“The bullpen shoved when they came in,” Taylor said. “They were lights out.”
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