The Mahoning Valley Scrappers are having a hard time developing any means of consistency.  On one night the pitching is golden, but the offense struggles.  The next night, the offense will put up six runs, but the bullpen gives up seven.  The result going into Sunday’s game was a 12-17 record.  Sunday’s unexpected shortcoming was the defense of Chase Burnette who made two costly errors in the ninth inning.  Burnette entered the game with one error all season.

Cameron Rupp put Williamsport up 1-0 in the top of the third inning when his bloop found a way down.  Scrapper LF Kevin Rucker (pictured) dove to make the play, but the ball squirted loose.  Mahoning Valley was lucky to only be trailing 1-0 after three as Williamsport left six runners stranded through the first third of the game.

Meanwhile, the Scrappers could only muster one hit through five innings, a Chase Burnette single off of Crosscutters starter Mario Hollands.

JD Goryl pitched a scoreless sixth and seventh for Mahoning County.  Crosscutters reliever Bradley Blanks followed up with two scoreless innings of his own yielding only a single to Burnette, his second of the game.  After seven, the Crosscutters maintained their 1-0 lead.

Carlos Moncrief, the pitcher turned outfielder, hit a two-run bomb in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Scrappers their first lead of the game at 2-1.  For Moncrief, it was his second home run of the year with the first coming in last night’s game. Moncrief reminds me of Carlos Delgado with his swing.

Dale Dickerson pitched the final two innings for the Scrappers.  Dickerson did a nice job mixing his pitches, but took the hard luck loss in relief.  Burnette picked up two errors in the top of the ninth.  With one out, he misplayed a ground ball allowing Kyrell Hudson to reach.  The next batter, Cesar Hernandez, hit a ball to second .  Aaron Fields’ only play was to first and the throw seemed accurate but was mishandled for Burnette’s second error.  Williamsport sent a pinch hitter, Jim Klocke, to the plate.  Klocke promptly tripled to put Williamsport up 3-2.  The Crosscutters tacked on another run when Rupp singled to center knocking home Klocke from third.

The Scrappers rallied in the ninth as Rucker hit a sac fly with the bases loaded to cut the score to 4-3.  Moncrief, who earlier homered, got up with two men out and two on but grounded to short to end the game.