Batavia completed a three-game sweep of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers on Wednesday night with a 6-2 win.  Two Penn-League All-Star pitchers started the game –  Jacob Lee for the Scrappers and Tyler Melling for the Muckdogs, in what would have been billed as a classic pitcher’s duel.

The offenses did away with the whole pitching dominance theory and combined to put up seven runs in the first three innings.

Batavia scored three in the first and two more in the third to nab a 5-0 lead.  Triples by  Steve Ramos and Patrick Wisdom off of Lee led to Batavia runs.

Mahoning Valley pushed back in the bottom of the third.  Erik Gonzalez reached via error and two outs later, Joe Wendle singled.  Joe Sever (below) knocked both Scrappers in to make it a 5-2 game.

Lee would finish the third inning for the Scrappers.  Geoffrey Davenport took over and struck out the side in the fourth looking really sharp.  He also struck out two of three in the fifth.  Davenport ended up throwing 3 – 2/3 innings of scoreless relief in his best appearance to date.

Meanwhile, the Scrapper offense continued to sputter.The Scrappers would finish the game with four hits, Wendle with two of them.

Defensively, Hunter Jones may have made the catch of the year.  Jacob Wilson hit a ball into the right-centerfield gap in the top of the ninth inning.  Jones came streaking to his right and dove catching a ball that looked to be past him with full-body extension.

Unfortunately, the winner of a baseball game is the team that scores the most runs.  The pattern lately has been that the Scrappers are on the wrong end of that spectrum.

As 2012 winds down, individual performances and efforts may overshadow team accomplishments.  In Mahoning Valley’s case, there are still plenty of good prospects on the team, and someone here can still impact the Indians organization in the future.