Baseball: Valleycats Walkoff Lake Monsters 3-2

Posted on , updated on by George Commo

Courtesy Vermont Lake Monsters

TROY, NY — Korey Lee followed a Nathan Perry leadoff single with an RBI walkoff double in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Tri-City ValleyCats a 3-2 victory over the Vermont Lake Monsters Friday night in New York-Penn League action at Bruno Stadium.

Perry led off the bottom of the ninth with a high-chopping infield single to third base and then came all the way around to score when Lee followed with a long double to leftcenter off Lake Monsters reliever Carlos Sanchez (0-1). The loss was the third straight for Vermont (4-4) and fourth in last five games.

The Lake Monsters had gotten on the board in the top of the first without the benefit of a base hit as they took advantage of a hit batter, fielding error and a pair of walks to score the game’s first run. After Tri-City took the 2-1 lead, the Lake Monsters tied the game in the sixth when reliever Brayan DePaula balked home Kevin Richards.

The ValleyCats had taken the 2-1 lead on solo home runs from Zach Biemann in the second and C.J. Stubbs in the fourth inning for the only runs allowed by Lake Monsters starter Richard Morban, who walked three and struckout seven over five inning.

Vermont was held to just two hits on the night, a Jose Rivas one-out double in fourth and Danny Bautista infield single in the seventh. Lake Monsters reliever Clark Cota had five strikeouts in two scoreless innings as the three Vermont pitchers combined for 14 punchouts in the game (Lake Monsters lead league with 94 strikeouts in just 70 innings pitched).

Tri-City starter Franny Cobos allowed an unearned run on one hit with two walks and four strikeouts over the first five innings, while Juan Pablo Lopez (1-1) tossed two scoreless innings of relief for the victory and Lee finished the night 3-for-4 with the walkoff double for the ValleyCats (3-4).

The Lake Monsters and ValleyCats will play the second of the three-game series at Tri-City Saturday 7:00pm. The series concludes Sunday and after a day off on Monday, Vermont will open a six-game homestand at Centennial Field on Tuesday.