Friday, August 24, 2007

LYNX: STAYING DOGGED, IN THE DOG DAYS

It's late in the year, it's the fourth game in two nights between two also-ran teams, and Brennan King is still grinding out at-bats for the Lynx. King fought back from an 0-2 count to force a full-count walk that set up Jim Rushford's tiebreaking three-run double in the sixth inning of tonight's 6-4 win (boxscore, play-by-play) over Syracuse in tonight's twinbill. Earlier, King had a nine-pitch at-bat before hitting a sac fly.

Joe Thurston apparently got wind of our musing over whether he or Gary Burnham should be the Lynx: He was 5-for-8 across the two games with a homer and three RBI. Burnham should be in second place in the IL in on-base percentage. He's at .394, even with Toledo's Ryan Raburn (who's been in the majors since early July). He's up to 80 RBI, five off the record with 10 games remaining.

Leadoff man Javon Moran is an 0-for-20 skid across the past five games.

Earlier, the gnats got to right-hander Gary Knotts in his Lynx debut, the 5-3 come-from-ahead loss (boxscore, play-by-play) to Syracuse in Game 1 of the double-dip.

Knotts was staked to a two-run lead but was extended in the fifth, which started when the Chiefs' 8-9 hitters, ex-Lynx/ex-Blue Jay Howie Clark and our working class hero of the week, Canuck catcher David Corrente, each got aboard to start the inning. An inning later, the lead reduced to 3-2, Adam Lind homered in the sixth before Clark singled ahead of Corrente crushing a game-winning home run for the second straight day. Right now the ball must look like it's the size of a volleyball to him.

(Corrente, from a long line of coaches, helped coached the Chatham-Kent Golden Hawks to an Ontario high school boys volleyball championship last fall. Thanks to a reader for the info -- and the corrections.)

1 comment:

Dave said...

Hey Neate, quick note about Corrente, He's not a teacher, he was just a volunteer and he was the assistant. However, saying that, his mom and dad are long time coaches, his dad is John Corrente Sr. a long time girls basketball coach who has led CKSS to a provincial title with UWO's all-Canadian Amanda Anderson two years ago. And his brother--John Corrente Jr. is a high school girls basketball coach in...are you waiting for it...Ottawa. Not sure which high school, but somewhere in Ottawa.