Game 80: Post-Game Notes

– Jose Molina is likely to be behind the plate later tonight at Waterfront Park.

“Tentatively, Molina is supposed to be here,” Thunder manager Tony Franklin told all three reporters who stuck around for the conclusion of the game.

“It could change.  I understand the field (in Scranton) is in pretty bad condition, and he’s doing his rehab, so it’s only a couple hours down the road, and this is probably the most logical place for him to be.  But that’s a tentative schedule for him (today).  But he’ll be here if I don’t hear anything.”

– Tuesday’s starter remains TBD.  In all probability, it will be a bullpen start.  On the off chance they can save Jason Stephens until then, he’s likely to be the guy.

– Jesus Montero left the game because he was ejected.  Nobody in the press box seemed to see the umpire’s motion that would have ejected Montero…either way, it was odd to see him in street clothes sitting with the pitchers during the late innings of the game.

He was tossed for arguing a controversial check swing call.  Franklin didn’t like the way the umpire treated his top prospect.

“I kind of think the umpire baited him,” Franklin told us.

“I felt that he was watching him all the way.  He’s a 19-year-old kid who is pretty emotional, and I’m a 100-year-old man who is pretty emotional, and I get baited sometimes as well.  I told the umpire I think he baited him, and he  was just waiting for him to do something so he could toss him.”

– Noah Hall and James Cooper were both running the bases before game time, and are close to returning.  Hall is eligible to come off the DL on Tuesday, and likely would be available at that time if the team needed him.

– The Thunder didn’t have much business winning this game tonight.  Down to their final strike in the tenth, Eduardo Nunez hit a miraculous blast to left field to send the game into the 11th inning, and then Justin Snyder sent everybody home happy with a walk-off double four long innings later.

“For as miserable as were for about seven innings, I thought we played a heck of a game after a while,” Franklin said. 

For Snyder, this was his second game-ending hit at Waterfront Park, as he hit a walk-off home run here earlier in the season.

“I was looking for a pitch over the plate,” Snyder told me.

“They were playing deep, so I was just trying to put it in the gap somewhere.  It was a fastball away, I went with it, and Richie (Robnett) ran really fast.”

Had the ball been fielded cleanly in the outfield, there was a pretty strong chance that Robnett would be out at the plate. 

“I think even if the guy caught it cleanly, it would have been a close play,” Snyder said.

“But I think Richie’s fast enough where he can score from first on a double in the left center gap.  So it worked out.”

– Ryan Pope was pretty horrendous his last time out.  He’d be the first one to tell you that.  So, while allowing four runs on seven hits in six innings of work isn’t the best outing in the world, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

“I felt pretty good, I feel like the boxscore doesn’t tell how the game actually went,” Pope said.

“They didn’t really hit the ball too hard.  Couple hits here, couple hits there, and some timely hitting and they get some runs.  But I felt really good.”

The 23-year-old said his confidence wasn’t affected by his last outing.

“(Stuff) is going to happen during some point in your career,” Pope said.

“You’ve just got to shake it off and go about your business the next week and do better.  I think that’s what happened this week.”

Pope credited some work with pitching coach Tommy Phelps for the improvement as well, saying they focused on Pope staying in with his front foot inbetween his last start and this one.

– The win got the Thunder back up to the .500 mark, as they’re now 40-40.  Franklin thinks that this kind of win could be one that could turn things around for his ballclub.

“I think it could do us tremendous good,” he said.

“We’re playing one of the two teams we’re chasing, and these are guys we have to beat.  You talk about big series, this can be classified as a big series.  It looked like we were out of it in the ninth inning, and Nunez gets the big blow, that certainly has to deflate them.  I certainly hope this propels us to play well.”

– The game lasted four hours and 39 minutes.  With that said, happy July 5th!

Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com