JOHNSTOWN —
A 3-0 start has put Philadelphia in the AAABA Tournament spotlight, even if the Bandits were trying to avoid it.
“We’re trying to keep quiet, but it’s not working,” manager Mike Gossner said with a laugh after his team’s 8-3 victory over Buffalo at Roxbury Park on Wednesday.
The Bandits’ bats did most of the talking on Wednesday, as Jimmy Yezzo belted two home runs and Nick Ferdinand added another in Philadelphia’s 13-hit attack.
One person who wasn’t doing much talking was Buffalo manager Chuck Righetti, who was unhappy with a controversial call in the third inning that wiped a Buffalo run off the board.
“It was the umpire at second base that missed the call. That was the whole game,” Righetti said in abbreviated interview with The Tribune-Democrat.
“That was the difference. It took us right out of the inning.”
Buffalo had the bases loaded with one out in the third when Travis Denman hit a fly ball to center field that was deep enough for all three runners to advance. Jesse Kelso crossed home plate with what appeared to be the first run of the game, but a few seconds later Philadelphia appealed the play at second base, saying that Justin Urschel left before Brendan Norton made the catch in center field. Second base Brent Dorofey agreed, and home plate umpire Don Bachota decided that the run should not count.
Ron Goisovich, the head of the AAABA umpires, refused comment on the situation.
Bob Wolfe, a national tournament chairman who umpired for nearly three decades, was unaware of the play.
“There wasn’t any protest filed, to my knowledge,” Wolfe said. “What I remember, unless some kind of rule changed, that was an incorrect ruling. If everything you said was exactly the way it was, the run would have scored.”
Even Gossner wasn’t sure what the correct ruling should have been.
“I’m not sure,” the Philadelphia manager said. “It’s a great question. I actually thought the umpire got it right, but as I think about it more and more, I’m not sure.”
Philadelphia took the lead in the bottom half of the inning, as Dillon Moyer battled through a 10-pitch at-bat before lining a two-out double to left to bring in Sean Coyle.
“I was just trying to fight off some of those 0-2 pitches, and I finally got one I could hit,” Moyer said.
Buffalo’s Steve Karnyski tied the game in the top of the fourth with a solo home run off Shane Petrellis, but the Philadelphia starter didn’t allow another run in his seven innings despite giving up 10 hits.
“Shane, I’m not going to say he’s a slow starter, but you have to get to him early,” Gossner said. “If you don’t, he gets settled in and gets in a rhythm, and that’s what we saw happening.”
The Philadelphia hitters certainly found a rhythm in the bottom of the fourth. The Bandits sent 10 men to the plate and scored six runs. Yezzo led off the inning with a solo home run and Matt Maher added an RBI double. Coyle and Moyer hit run-scoring singles before Ferdinand’s two-run homer to left made it 7-1.
Buffalo starter Zack Leitten gave up seven runs on 11 hits in 32/3 innings. Garrett Cortright, who got the win in Tuesday’s victory over Toledo, pitched the final 42/3 innings, allowing just two hits, though one was Yezzo’s solo homer in the eighth.
Gossner said the Bandits’ power surge was nothing new.
“We’ve been doing that all year,” he said.
“These guys broke the Philadelphia record for home runs this year in the Harry Startzel League.”
Yezzo, who has been a consistent source of power, was quick to deflect attention.
“It was a team effort,” he said. “Everybody did their job today.”
Coyle and Moyer had three hits apiece for Philadelphia. Yezzo, Ferdinand and Steve Sulcoski each had two.
Slater McCue pitched a scoreless inning of relief for Philadelphia before Buffalo got a pair of unearned runs off Christopher Branigan in the ninth on Denman’s two-run single.
Mike Hackett and Karnyski each had three hits for Buffalo, which will face Delweld tonight in an elimination game. Denman and Urschel each had two.
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