Baseball: Davidson Leads Monsters Comeback Win Over Brooklyn

Posted on , updated on by George Commo

Courtesy Vermont Lake Monsters

BURLINGTON — Logan Davidson snapped a 4-4 tie with a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning and Richard Morban tosses 5 1/3 scoreless innings of relief to lead the Vermont Lake Monsters to a 6-4 victory over the Brooklyn Cyclones in New York-Penn League action Thursday night at historic Centennial Field.

Oakland’s first-round pick out of Clemson in the 2019 draft, Davidson drilled a one-out 0-2 pitch from Cyclones reliever Nelson Leon (2-1) 404-feet over both sets of billboards in right field for the two-run homer. After a slow start to the season with the Lake Monsters (4-for-45 first 13 games), Davidson is hitting .303 (33-for-109) with four home runs in last 28 games.

Brooklyn jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first on a Luke Ritter RBI double and Jose Peroza two-run homer. Vermont got its first run in the second on three singles, including a Kevin Richards RBI single, but Joe Genord hit a solo homer in the third for his eighth home run of season (and second off Vermont starter Tyler Baum).

Morban (1-1) came on in relief of Baum with two outs in the third and ended the inning with a strikeout before scattering just four hits over the next five scoreless innings with a walk and five more strikeouts, giving the Lake Monsters the chance to rally from the 4-1 deficit.

The rallly started in the sixth as Jose Rivas drove home Josh Watson with a double off the wall in leftcenter and Davidson followed with a bad hop RBI single past third baseman Peroza to cut deficit to 4-3. Dustin Harris then tied the game with a sacrifice fly to center.

After the Davidson go ahead homer, Jose Mora nailed down the victory with two strikeouts in a 1-2-3 top of the ninth inning for his ninth save overall (second best in league) and his fifth save in the Lake Monsters last nine victories.

The win also marked Vermont’s 500th Centennial Field regular-season victory all-time dating back to the team’s first NYPL season back in 1994.

Vermont (27-33) has now won two straight as the three-game series with Brooklyn and six-game homestand concludes 7:05 pm Friday with the first 1,000 fans receiving a free Lake Monsters replica jersey.