A third-inning triple play was only one piece of the sparkling defensive puzzle put together by Philadelphia in support of Kevin Dooley’s complete-game victory as Philadelphia ABCO downed Brooklyn Youth Service 4-1 Tuesday at Fichtner Field at Johnstown Middle School.
The triple play came after Brooklyn put its first two batters on base via Juan Arroyo’s single to right and a walk drawn by Victor Aracena. On a 1-0 pitch, Roberto Duran Jr. punched a ball to Philadelphia third baseman Frank Mercurio, who tagged out Arroyo and threw the ball to second baseman Garret Rugg to force out Aracena before Rugg’s throw to first baseman Ryan Murphy beat Duran to the bag.
“I didn’t realize until I threw the ball to second that we actually had a shot on the back end,” Mercurio said. “It really got us all fired up and we started putting some at-bats together and some runs on the board.”
Dooley, a 19-year-old Pitt product, scattered five hits and allowed Brooklyn’s lone run in the first en route to the complete-game victory.
“My hat goes off to (Philadelphia’s) choice of pitcher,” Brooklyn manager Rocky Medina said. “They brought a very crafty lefty in. He kept us off balance.”
Through 19 innings over the past two days, Philadelphia has only used three pitchers while allowing only one run. That puts the pitching staff in great shape for the coming days.
“We had two days in a row of great pitching performances,” Philadelphia manager Brian Kraus said. “It’s huge.”
Philadelphia took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when a single to center from Michael Moceri and walks by Mercurio and Ryan Kreider loaded the bases for Murphy, who worked a walk out of Brooklyn’s Victor Gonzalez to force in Moceri.
Brooklyn responded in the bottom of the frame as Duran drew a walk, took second on Eric Vazquez’s single to left and moved to third on a passed ball before he scored on Adalberto Vargas’ ground-out to short.
Philadelphia scored again in the third in a sequence started by Charles Kelly’s lead-off single to right. After moving to second on Mercurio’s grounder to third and taking third on a wild pitch, Kelly scored on a Kreider ground-out to second. Rugg’s one-out single to right in the seventh, paired with a two-base error by Arroyo, set the table for Philadelphia to increase its lead to 3-1 on a wild pitch.
Gonzalez pitched 6 2/3 innings with three runs allowed on four hits with seven walks issued.
Reliever Michael Martinez pitched the remaining 2 1/3 innings with a run allowed on three hits.
Moceri walked and scored on a fielder’s choice grounder from Mercurio in the ninth.
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