BY PAUL GOTHAM
GENEVA, N.Y. — Luke Salerno (Castleton St.) didn’t have his best stuff Sunday afternoon. The Geneva Twins starter didn’t need it.
Backed by timely hitting, Salerno improved to 5-1 on the season, and Geneva ran its winning streak to eight with a 4-1 victory over the Genesee Rapids in New York Collegiate Baseball League action at McDonough Park.
Salerno scattered two hits and four walks over seven shutout innings to take his fifth straight decision.
The right-hander was at his best working out of jams.
“He went out there and competed for us,” Geneva manager Andy Weeks said. “Obviously, he didn’t have his best stuff, but he went out there and battled.”
Salerno retired the side in order in the first and fourth but issued leadoff walks from the fifth through the seventh.
“Sometimes I battled back, but other times I fell a little short,” Salerno said. “I thought I’d try to start with some off speed and sometimes that put me behind in counts.”
After stranding a pair of runners in scoring position in the second, the Essex Junction, Vermont native did not allow a ball out of the infield for the next five innings. He erased a leadoff free pass in the fifth with a double play and ended the inning with a ground ball to short. A lead walk in the sixth was followed by three ground balls – the last a come-backer, and in the seventh the Rapids could not make solid contact with the leadoff man aboard.
“He got a couple of ground balls to get out of innings,” Weeks said.
Salerno struck out three and lowered his ERA to 2.74. More importantly, opposing batters are hitting just .237 against him.
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“Today I was giving my off speed a good go,” Salerno explained. “I was reading their swings the last few games. They kinda struggle with off speed pitches.”
“Their kid threw pretty well,” Genesee manager Tyler Rost said. “He kept us off balance.”
Geneva managed just six hits, but the Twins offense made the most of it.
Andy Lalonde (So. New Hampshire) put the home nine on the board with an RBI double in the second off Genesee starter, Edward Monthie (Houghton).
“He was hitting his spots really well,” Lalonde said of Monthie. “He just left me a pitch out over the plate, and I wasn’t trying to do too much with it.”
With Connor Simonetti (Kent State) aboard via a leadoff walk, Lalonde drilled an opposite field shot that touched just inside the right field foul line.
“We had a guy on base,” Lalonde added. “I was just trying to get him over. I got a good piece.”
Simonetti scored easily from first.
“Andy put a really good piece on that ball,” Simonetti stated. “I didn’t even look. I was just trying to score off the bat.”
Simonetti added to the advantage in the third with his league-leading seventh home run of the season.
“When he puts a charge into one like that, it gets the guys get a little excited again,” Weeks commented.
Simonetti, who has homered in consecutive games, plated Nate Roethel (St. John Fisher) with a two-out shot to right of the flag pole in center field.
“He gave me a fastball first pitch right over the heart of the plate,” the Twins left fielder said. “I think he was doing that earlier in the game just to get ahead… He laid the first one in there, and I was just able to get a good swing on it.”
After not reaching in his first two at bats, Bob Barnett (Widener) led the fifth with a triple that one-hopped the wall in left center. He scored on a Roethel sacrifice fly to make it 4-0.
“My first two at bats I really didn’t do too well,” the right-hander batter said. “Second at bat I was way out in front. So I thought ‘all right I got to sit back a little bit more.’ My approach is to go the other way, but the ball came in a little more. I put a good swing on it.”
The base knock extended the hitting streak of the Geneva leadoff man to eight, a stretch in which he has also scored six runs.
“We got some great hitters behind me,” Barnett said. “I know they’re going to hit me in. All I try to do is get on base. I know they’re going to hit me in.”
“He’s very aggressive up there,” Weeks said of his leadoff man. “He can steal some bases. He’s got some great speed. He kinda does a little bit of everything for you. He helps us win for sure.”
Quinn Dipasquale (Stevens Institute of Technology) worked a scoreless eighth before struggling in the ninth.
Kyle Monk (Emory) came out of the bullpen with the bases loaded and retired the two batters he faced for his tenth save of the season.
“He’s been money this whole summer,” Salerno said of his teammate. “He’s our go-to guy. He’s got the stuff, for sure. Whenever we need a stop, he’s there.”
Monk has two wins on the season and has not allowed an earned run in his last ten appearances – a span covering nine-plus innings of work.
“It’s huge,” Weeks said of Monk’s impact in late-game situations. “If you have confidence in a guy, you can put him in any time and you know he’s going to go out there and compete, throw strikes and get outs for you. He’s a game-changer, absolutely.”
Jake Shelby (Hesston) drove in Genesee’s only run with a sacrifice fly.
Monthie took the tough-luck loss allowing four runs on five hits.
“If he gets a little less of the plate on two maybe three pitches here or there then he really minimizes and throws a good game for us,” Rost said.
Jason Collingwood (Greenville) and Ryan Chamberlain both hurled a shutout inning of relief for the Rapids.
With the win, Geneva (21-13) put five games between themselves and the fourth-place Rapids (16-18). The Twins trail first-place Hornell (24-10) by three games. Geneva tied Hornell for the league’s longest winning streak of the season.
Genesee and Geneva meet Monday for the last time in the regular season. A 7 p.m. first pitch is scheduled at McDonough Park.
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