Baseball

Summer school

A tough loss to Binghamton in ‘Clash of the Catskills’ offers valuable lessons to Floyd Keener Post 315 Rangers

By RICHARD A. ROSS

LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY — “Baseball is a pitch and catch game. Whoever plays catch better usually wins.” Thus noted Floyd Keener Post 315 Rangers coach Mike Marra, following his team’s tough 16-10 loss to Binghamton Post 1645 team on July 4 in the Rangers’ opening game of the Clash of the Catskills Tournament.

Deep sixed in the sixth, the Rangers surrendered six runs to the surging Binghamton squad that profited from nine walks and six errors to pull out an unlikely win.

Tough as the loss was for the Rangers, a team comprised of Sullivan County’s most talented 17-and-under players from Monticello, Fallsburg, Livingston Manor, Liberty and Tri-Valley, the experience with adversity is part of the learning curve that will make them better players.

“That’s what competitive summer baseball is all about,” said Marra, who was recently named the 2008 NJCAA Region XV Baseball Coach of the Year, following the SCCC Generals’ first regional championship this spring. Marra is now moving on to coach baseball at Monticello High School.

Under his valuable tutelage, the Rangers are getting a serious dose of higher learning that is aimed at producing sound fundamentals and the right mindset to play a game that Marra describes as “relatively simple.”

But holding a 6-0 lead after two innings turned out to be no simple matter for the Rangers. By game’s end, the Rangers’ bats had piled up 10 runs, a total that should have been more than sufficient to garner the win. But baseball is all about pitching and defense, and that’s where the team will have to intensify its studies.

Binghamton came into this game with a shortage of arms, as coach Mike Allen pored over his roster, looking for someone to take the ball. The team had played two innings the night before when a downpour forced a cancellation against the New England Firebirds. Losing 15-0 before the maelstrom finally washed out the game and having to play a pair of games on July 4 put arms at a premium. The team had also played a league game on July 3.

Ranger starter Chris Lake (Liberty) easily disposed of Binghamton batters in the first inning. Allen sent sophomore Dave Kellar to the mound but his outing was short-lived. After surrendering walks to Ross Abbott and Jesse Levine and allowing the runners to move up on a passed ball, Kellar saw the first run cross the plate on a ground out by Andrew Yager.

On the next play, with Tim Martin batting, Kellar was injured after tagging Levine out at home, following a wild pitch. Levine’s spikes injured Kellar’s shin, forcing his exit to Catskill Regional Medical Center for an x-ray. A 14-minute delay resulted, adding time to the allotted two-hours-and-15-minute game-time limitation.

Freshman Joey Klenchik came on to pitch and struck Martin out. “He’s not really a pitcher,” said Allen, “but I’ve got to get innings from somebody.”

Lake was effective in the second inning, posting two strike outs after yielding a single and a walk.

Klenchik, on the other hand, was in for a tough go of it. He walked the first three batters and faced a total of nine before the inning finally ended. The Rangers scored five runs in the second on passed balls, a squeeze play, a throwing error and RBI singles by Levine and Yager.

The Rangers’ 6-0 lead would prove to be brief. In the top of the third, an E-6 allowed Dave Robinson to reach safely. He stole second and scored on a RBI single by Klenchik. Finding their stroke against Lake, Binghamton batters began to rope hits. Back-to-back doubles by André Kashou and Casey Dennison brought in three more runs, and the Rangers’ lead was cut to 6-4.

Marra preached patience and Lake got out of the inning without further damage by notching his third strike out.

Looking to pick him up, the team got four runs back in the bottom of the third. Two hit batsmen in Lake and Brandon Edwards followed a leadoff single by Evan Kirsch. Anthony D’Abbraccio’s sac fly to deep center plated the first run. A second run scored on a ground out by Dan Byrne. A double by Abbott and a throwing error led to two more.

Marra sent Lake back to the mound in the fourth, but a leadoff triple by Cheyo Rogers and a RBI single by Robinson were an ominous foreshadowing to another four-run outburst. Marra inserted Jesse Brown. With bases loaded and two out, Brown walked in a pair of runs and allowed a single.

“We need to do a better job of locating our pitches,” Marra would later say, looking back on the efforts of Brown and Troy Edwards, who came on to replace him. Edwards notched a strike out to end the fourth inning and allowed the tying run in the fifth. He would yield a total of five walks before his day was through.

Better defense would have made his job easier. An E-5 with one out and one on in the sixth paved the way for the Ranger loss, as six runs would cross the plate and put the Rangers in a deep hole.

While the Rangers pitchers had trouble stopping the bleeding, Binghamton got stellar relief from its starter’s younger brother, John Kellar. Coming on in the fourth and bouncing back from a bruising liner to the thigh, Kellar shut down the Rangers for three innings by notching six strikeouts and staying ahead of batters.

The Rangers loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, but failed to score as Kellar struck out D’Abbraccio to end the game.

Allen was overjoyed with his team’s gritty effort. “To be down 6-0 like that and battle back and stay in it showed something,” he said. “Dave Kellar had to go to the hospital and we were short of arms. I think John Kellar did it for his brother. He just came on and threw strikes.”

Marra summed up the day thusly. “When you score 10 runs and can’t win, it comes down to pitching and defense.”

Calm and philosophical about the loss, Marra understands the long-range goal of developing better skills and poise. Looking forward to the team’s two games on July 5, Marra hoped his starters would fare better. Kirsch will get the ball for one of those games. The Rangers fell to 4-4-1, while Binghamton improved to 4-3 with the win.

Visit riverreportersports.com for an album of photos from the game and a history of American Legion youth baseball.