Photo courtesy Harrisburg Senators

B-Mets 8, Senators 2

Guys like Phil Jackson and George Steinbrenner notoriously used the media to motivate players on a frequent basis. But in the world of minor league baseball, tactics like that rarely happen if at all. When a manager or coach speaks pointedly about a player’s issues, you can pretty much bet a conversation between the two parties has already taken place. If that’s the case, I would not want to be in Paul Demny’s shoes right now.

Friday night in the bowels of Metro Bank Park, manager Matt LeCroy left very little to guess about his feelings for his starter’s performance against the Binghamton Mets. “In this game, you’ve got to be mentally strong. You’ve got to compete,” the skipper said, “Sometimes you don’t have your best stuff, you’ve got learn how to compete and get outs.”

LeCroy pointed to the top of the fourth inning as the turning point in the game, “I thought once we came back and tied the ballgame up and then you go out and we need a shutdown inning, he couldn’t get it done…We took the momentum and then all of a sudden we turned around and gave it right back. When you do that in baseball, it’s really hard to get back from it.”

More disconcerting to the manager might be the trend he sees developing with Demny and what it might signal down the road, “That’s back-to-back starts now he hasn’t been able to get through it. He’s got to figure out something inside of him that’s going to get him over this little hump. You can either fight your way and compete or you can feel sorry for yourself and blame something and continue to not get the job done. But that’s on him…It’s unfortunate because he’s got the stuff to be a big league pitcher, but right now he’s got to get his mind right to compete and get after it.”

Exactly a year and one day ago today, interim manager Pat Corrales had a very famous one-on-one conversation with Demny on the mound, “You can choose to change it now if you stop pitching scared or you can possibly find yourself on your couch eating chips one day five years from now wondering what the heck happened.” Nothing much has changed in 366 days, has it?

Player of the Game: Trevor Holder

Dugout Chatter

“I told him he didn’t have to try and carry our club. I think sometimes they put a little added pressure on you because you’ve been in the big leagues to carry us, but I told him to keep doing what he’s doing.” – – LeCroy on Anthony Rendon’s return

From the Windup

• The Senators are now 0-10 when the opposition scores five runs or more.

• Cesar Puello went 1-for-5 and has now hit safely in a team best 11 straight games for the B-Mets.

• The three hits the Senators were held to on the evening was a season-low for the team.

• For the second night in a row, the Senators drew their largest crowd of the season as 6,374 fans poured into Metro Bank Park.

• Starter Erik Goeddel along with relievers Adam Kolarek, Josh Edgin, and Jeff Walters set down the last 19 Senators batters in order to preserve the 8-2 B-Mets victory