Neal Musser took the mound for the Binghamton Mets Friday night knowing that he had to stop the B-Mets 11 game losing streak while keeping their season alive against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. It wasn’t going to be an easy task, because the Mets offense has shown no signs of life over the last two weeks. It would take a shutout baseball for the team to keep their hopes alive. They got shutout baseball in a dramatic 1-0 walk off victory in 10 innings.

Musser and New Hampshire starter Chris Baker matched zeros for the first seven innings. Musser was solid allowing only four hits while striking out 8. Baker was even better striking out 10 while allowing only two hits.

Both pitchers would turn the game over to the bullpens in the eighth. Royce Ring came in and was his usual dominant self in the eighth getting the side in order. Binghamton looked like they would break through first in the bottom of the inning when they got a 1 out single from Chris Basak, and with two outs, shortstop Aaron Hill booted a Joe Heitpas grounder to create a first and third situation. Gil Velazquez who has struggled with runners in scoring position laid down a suicide squeeze bunt. The catcher fielded the ball and made a spectacular play to prevent Velazquez from beating the throw.

New Hampshire would have their own scoring opportunity in the ninth when with two outs and a runner on first, second baseman Chris Basak dropped a pop-up that would have been the third out. He got the batter in a rundown between first and second, before getting the runner in a rundown as he was rounding home trying to score to end the inning.

Binghamton had another opportunity in the ninth when Wayne Lydon beat out an infield single and then stole second. Unfortunately, Angel Pagan could not get the bunt down, and after an intentional walk, James Vermilyea got two fly ball outs to get out of the inning.

Binghamton finally broke through in the tenth. Aarom Baldiris and Joe Heitpas had back-to-back 1 out singles to put runners on the corners. Gil Velazquez was up and hit a ground ball to the shortstop that appeared to be a double play ball until Hill booted the ball allowing the winning run to cross the plate. Binghamton now trails the best of five series 2-1. They’ll send Brian Bannister to the mound Saturday night in hopes of tying up the series and sending it back to New Hampshire.

Notes: The New York Mets announced before the game that they will extend their affiliation with Binghamton for another two years. Binghamton has been the Mets Double-AA affiliate since 1992.

Photo by the Binghamton Mets.

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