Bland Opening

The Brockton Rox downed the North Shore Spirit tonight, 8-4, in an exhibition game at Fraser Field. Stephen Bronder started for North Shore, giving up 3 runs in two innings of work and taking the loss. Brockton built an 8-1 lead before the Spirit made a small late-innings rally, including a 2 run 9th inning homer by Gilbert Gil.

The game ended in a very bizzare manner. With 2 men on and 1 out, a blooper by Chad Gabriel fell in on an error by Brockton's left fielder, but on the play, one of the baserunners passed the other, leading to two outs on the play and ending the game. Without the baserunning error, the Spirit would have brought the tying run to the plate.

After Bronder gave up the initial three runs, Chris Simon gave up a single run in the 5th and former Sussex legend Melvin Alvarez was lit up for four runs in the 7th to break it open. Chris Eickhorst, Jamie Baker, Derek Drage, Donny Langdon, and Ryan Williams all tossed shutout innings for the Spirit; especially impressive were the performances of Eickhorst, who worked out of a 1st & 2nd 0 out jam, and Donny Langdon, who got out of Melvin Alvarez's mess in the 7th.

The Spirit scored on a fifth inning RBI double by Chad Gabriel, a Brockton wild pitch in the 8th and Gilbert Gil's 2 run homer in the 9th.

Vic Davilla's starting lineup saw Mike Torres at Catcher, who had a solid day behind the plate; Brad Rea at 1st; Cordova at 2nd; Jerson Perez at short; who had a bad error in the first inning; non-roster invitee Gary Roche at 3rd; Blakely, Weed and Carlos Rodriguez in the outfield; and Fischer at DH. JC Gutierrez made an appearance at catcher and allowed two passed balls.

Pics & video coming later... Video coming by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.


Star of the game: Donny Langdon

Burning Questions:

1. Have you ever seen a weirder finish to a game?
2. Who impressed you the most tonight?
3. Who left the worst first impression?