Tri-City ValleyCats third baseman J.D. Davis had a rough professional debut Saturday night. He made two of the team’s seven errors in a 9-2 loss to the Connecticut Tigers.
Tri-City managed Ed Romero decided to give Davis a chance to catch his breath Sunday against the Tigers. He had Davis as the designated hitter for the game.
The move paid off. Davis belted a game-tying, two-run homer in the seventh inning, and the ’Cats completed the comeback with a 3-2 victory on Ariel Ovando’s RBI single with one out in the ninth.
Davis, who was selected by the Houston Astros in the third round of the Major League Baseball draft earlier this month out of Cal State-Fullerton, arrived in the Capital Region just after midnight Saturday. He didn’t get much sleep, and that may have contributed to his tough debut.
“It was a rough first day,” Davis said. “It was good. We fought back. We were down by two. It was good to come back and finally get a win and get on the winning side.”
Romero understood that Davis was probably overwhelmed with making his professional debut.
“It was the first game he played last night. He made a couple of errors,” Romero said. “He’s got all this stuff that’s going on [with] the first game and stuff like that. I wanted to see if he could relax a little bit and just DH today, and then, tomorrow, we’ll go out and do some work defensively. He’ll probably play again tomorrow.
“I just wanted to make sure that I had his bat in the lineup today.”
After Nick Tanielu was hit by a pitch from reliever Micah Kellogg pitch to start the seventh, Davis drilled a 3-1 fastball over the left-field fence for not only his first homer, but his first professional hit.
“I was speechless,” Davis said. “The guy was throwing fastballs in, so I just made an adjustment. I backed off the plate. I [got the] barrel [out]. I was just sitting fastball. I squared it up, and it happened to go over the fence.”
Before that, the ’Cats couldn’t solve Tigers starter Tanner Bailey. The right-hander scattered three hits in six innings. He struck out nine and walked none.
“He was deceptive,” Davis said. “He was mixing his pitches and mixing his speeds. He did a really good job of spotting up with his fastball.”
’Cats pitcher Luis Ordosgoitti (1-0) was outstanding in relief of starter Blaine Sims. The 6-foot-4 right-hander pitched five shutout innings, allowing just two hits. He struck out five and walked one.
CONNECTICUT TRI-CITY
ab r h bi ab r h bi
Brown cf 3 1 1 0 Hernandz 2b 2 0 1 0
D.Gonzlez ss 3 0 0 0 Hyde ss 4 9 1 0
Leyba 2b 4 0 0 0 Tanielu 3b 3 1 0 0
Tovar dh 4 0 2 1 Davis dh 4 1 1 2
Coffman lf 4 0 1 0 Santana rf 2 1 0 0
Fuentes 1b 3 0 1 0 Wik cf 3 0 1 0
Taladay c 4 1 1 0 Ovando lf 4 0 1 0
Negron 3b 3 0 0 0 A.Gonzalz c 3 0 1 0
Salgado rf 4 0 1 0 Nlbowich lf 3 0 0 0
Ritchie 1b 0 0 0 0
Totals 32 2 7 2 Totals 28 3 6 3
Connecticut 110 000 000—2
Tri-City 000 000 201—3
One out when winning run scored.
E—Negron (1), D.Gonzalez (4), A.Gonzalez (2), Hyde (2). DP—Connecticut 1. Tri-City 1. LOB—Connecticut 7, Tri-City 6. HR—Davis (1). SB—Hyde (1). CS—Salgado (1), Hernandez (1). S—Hernandez 2, Wik.
IP H R ER BB SO
Connecticut
Bailey 6 3 0 0 0 9
Kellog BS,1 2 1 2 2 0 1
Kirkland L,0-1 1-3 2 1 1 1 0
Varvaro 1 3 1 1 1 1
Tri-City
Sims 4 5 2 2 2 2
Ordsgtti W,1-0 5 2 0 0 1 5
WP— Sims 2. HBP—by Sims (Fuentes), by Kellog (Tanielu, Santana).
Umpires—Home, Donnie Smith. Bases, Jacob Metz.
T—2:29. A—4,003.
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