Fireworks mark 51s win over Fresno

During the middle of Phillip Evans’ at-bat, more than a few fireworks were accidentally shot off, leading to a brief stoppage in play.

“It was pretty wild. It’s Minor League Baseball,” third baseman Cody Asche said. “You never know what you’re going to get.”

When the game resumed, the 51s provided a few fireworks of their own, responding with three RBI doubles in the inning to tie the game and four more runs in the sixth inning to beat Fresno 8-5 on Friday night at Cashman Field.

Evans’ eventful at-bat ended with the first of those RBI doubles, with Johnny Monell and Asche following suit to knot the game at four all.

“I think it was our second time through against (Fresno starter David Paulino),” Asche said. “The first time was tough, just kind of figuring out what he had and how we were going to go about it. The second time through, everybody went up there with a little more disciplined approach. That turned into three doubles to tie the game back up and it was a new game from there.”

The score remained tied until the sixth inning when Tomas Nido, in just his second game since being sent down by the Mets, doubled to right to drive in Patrick Kivlehan.

The next batter, Asche, provided three more runs for the 51s (14-22), blasting a home run off Fresno (21-15) reliever Andrew Thome.

“The word on the street was that he had a sinker so I was trying to be ready when I stepped in the box to hit,” Asche said. “Luckily, he threw a couple balls the first two pitches so I got a good look at his heater and his changeup. At 2-0 I was just kind of looking up in the zone not trying to do anything besides just put a good barrel on it because I knew probably if I do that the ball’s going to go in the air, we’re going to score a run. I got a good swing, barreled it and it went over the wall.”

That was enough run support for Scott Copeland, who gave up four runs in his first start for the 51s.

All four of those runs came in the third inning, giving Fresno a 4-1 lead at the time.

Copeland gave up seven hits and four walks in his six innings, but managed to work past most of the baserunners.

“At first, I thought he kind of nibbled a little bit but he had enough sink in offspeed to get some swings and misses and battle out of some jams,” manager Tony DeFrancesco said. “He got a couple double plays behind him. We need our starters to at least give us 100 pitches and to get six (innings) out of him was a big day for us.”

Copeland picked up the win as the 51s ended the series with a split. It was a series that started with two bruising losses as the 51s gave up 18 and 20 hits on back-to-back nights.

“They kind of grinded it out. We got beat up the first two games here,” DeFrancesco said. “The guys came back and won the next two. Hopefully we’ve got some momentum going into our next (series with) Albuquerque coming in here tomorrow.”

Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.