MVN - Most Valuable Network

Paw Sox Win in Pitching Duel

After doing a weak imitation of a veteran, Michael Tejera resembled a pitcher with 12 years of major and minor league experience.

Tejera slammed the door on the Syracuse Chiefs as the Pawtucket Red Sox won, 3-1, on Wednesday night before a crowd of 6,180 at McCoy Stadium.

Tejera (1-2) worked six innings and allowed the one run on four hits.

He walked only one, struck out four and threw 48 of 80 pitches for strikes.

In his previous two starts, Tejera was tagged for seven earned runs in 11 innings.

“Tonight, (Tejera) was really locked in,” said manager Ron Johnson. “He scuffled with his command the first couple of hitters. But you could see he was really expecting a lot out of himself. I could see that by his reactions and his emotions in the first couple of hitters.

“After the first inning, he was rolling. He did a super, super job.”

Tejera walked leadoff batter Buck Coats but retired the next two Chiefs on fielder’s choice grounders and ended the frame by getting Hector Luna on a grounder to third.

Tejera worked himself into and out of a second-inning jam.

After Eric Nielsen and Jorge Velandia singled with one out, Tejera punched out Sergio Santos and Pedro Lopez.

“He really started commanding his secondary stuff,” said Johnson. “His feel for the breaking ball … when you start looking at it from the side with the spin direction and location, he started throwing off-speed stuff early in the counts where he could throw get-me-over strikes with a curveball.  And then he started mixing his fastball back and forth.

“I mean, that was very impressive. I thought he was rolling pretty good but this early in the season we’re going to be a little bit cautious with pitch counts. But this was one of those games where you saw the tempo he set and the command he was featuring. A month from now, with this type of game, he’ll be taking it very late in the ball game.”

When Johnson went to his bullpen,  Eric Hull, Bryan Corey, Jon Switzer and Lee Gronkiewicz (fourth save) combined for four innings of one-hit, scoreless relief.

“Bryan’s going to be a tremendous addition to the bullpen,” said Johnson. “The reliability of what he brings to the bullpen is really nice.

“Switzer, good job. Gronkiewicz, good job. They’re coming in and throwing strikes. That’s the biggest part of it. Make people beat you. They’ve done a nice job of that.”

The only inning when Tejera failed to hang a zero on the board was the fourth when Nielsen lined a two-out homer into the left-field berm. But Tejera finished strong, by retiring the last seven Chiefs.

Pawtucket, meanwhile, grabbed a 2-0 lead in the second against David Purcey (2-1).

Keith Ginter singled with one out, and after Dusty Brown fanned, Chad Spann walked.

Gil Velazequez then lined an RBI double into the right-field corner. When the ball got through Wayne Lydon for an error, Spann scored all the way from first.

The score remained 2-1 until the fifth when George Kottaras launched a rocket over the elevated billboards in right field for his sixth home run of the season.

**
EXTRA BASES:  Craig Hansen, who’s been lights out this season for Pawtucket, was recalled by Boston before Wednesday’s game … In eight relief appearances, Hansen was 1-0 with a perfect (as in 0.00) ERA in 12 1/3 innings …. He’s struck out 13, walked four and his OBA was a miniscule .073 (3-41) …The PawSox added two players to their roster, Corey and infielder Aaron Reza … Corey began the season with Boston and had a 14.54 ERA in six appearances before he was designated for assignment … Reza was called up from Greenville where he was hitting .353 (18-51) with three home runs and seven doubles in 19 games … Reza also had a 1.107 OPS.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.