The dogs were on parade at Eastwood Field for Saturday’s Mahoning Valley Scrappers game.  Bark At The Park drew about 35 canine’s all barking and yapping.  The Scrappers did their best to give the fans plenty to bark and yap about as well.  It worked, for about four innings.  A series of errors and unearned runs doomed the Scrappers who gave up ten total runs in the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings, and Vermont coasted home and bolstered their record to 17-5 with a 10-4 walloping.

Giovanny Urshela (above) came through with a big hit in the bottom of the fourth inning to give the Scrappers a 2-0 lead. Urshela’s big  hit knocked in Tyler Cannon and Chase Burnette. Carlos Moncrief followed that with a solid single that plated Urshela and pushed the lead to 3-0, all of the damage to Lake Monster starting pitcher Taylor Jordan took place with two outs in the frame.

Vermont responded in the top of the fifth when Kevin Keyes blooped a single over the second basemen’s head that plated two Lake Monsters.  Vermont then tied the game when Wade Moore singled to left off of reliever Clayton Ehlert.  Ehlert relieved starter Alex Kaminsky who threw 82 pitches without giving up a run.

In the top of the sixth, two Scrapper errors on the same play opened the floodgates for Vermont.  2B Kevin Fontanez let a ground ball go through his legs into right and then Moncrief made a throwing error.  Later in the same inning, C Diego Seastrunk deflected a ball just about ten feet to the right of home plate and then took his time getting to it allowing the runner from third base to score.  On the next pitch, Urshela let a play he makes 99% of the time at third scoot by into left.  Four errors, four runs, 7-3 Vermont.

Vermont tacked on three more runs in the top of the seventh on one hit to raise the score to 10-3.  The Scrappers bullpen struggled to get outs and didn’t have much help defensively giving up 10 runs over a three inning stretch.  Dale Dickerson was effective getting the final out in the seventh and pitching a scoreless eighth for Mahoning Valley.

The Scrappers manufactured a run in the eighth to make it 10-4, but everything seemed to work against Fryman’s boys tonight.  Too many bloops and errors.

The Scrappers welcome Hudson Valley to Niles for a Sunday game, first pitch is at 5 o’clock.