The Brooklyn Cyclones season through the first thirty games have ultimately been a success. Accumulating a record of 17 and 13 and sitting in a 3 way tie for 1st place in the New York Penn League. With this success, the Cyclones have also had their fair share of weaknesses such as, being unable to put together a complete game with pitching, offense, and defense. That was until this past home stand against the Scrappers and Black Bears.
The Cyclones went 5 and 1 this past homestand taking 2 of 3 from the Scrappers and sweeping the Black Bears putting them on a nice 3 game winning streak. Brooklyn’s success this past week has come from a combination of great pitching and timely hitting from a few key players for the first time all year.
Luke Ritter and Ranfy Adon, two guys who continue to impress this season were a big part of the last home stands success. Ritter hit an impressive .438 while scoring 4 runs on 2 extra base hits. Ritter’s play has significantly improved since the beginning of the season and finds himself slashing a healthy .279/.400/.430 and leading the team in runs with 15. If Ritter keeps up his impressive play, he can find himself getting a promotion sooner rather than later.
Adon, struggling a bit going in to the homestand woke up his bat and drove in 4 runs with 3 extra base hits including a homer. Adon went 7 for 15 (.466) including his offensive outburst, going 4 for 4 against the Black Bears. Adon is slashing a weak .245/.247/.358 for the season but with his play this week I feel it can propel him to a better second half of the season.
Garrison Byant and the New York native Frank Valentino both had electric starts this week giving up 0 runs in each of their starts. Bryant pitched an electric 5 innings on Monday afternoon taking a no hitter into the 5th. He finished his day with 7 strikeouts and only 2 hits, one coming by a perfectly placed bunt to break up the no-no bid. After his nice start Bryant said “they were being super aggressive early on and I just took advantage of that” adding “I was just focusing on throwing strikes and expanding the zone whenever I could.”
Valentino who came to the mound trying to bounce back from a performance where he gave up 5 earned runs in 5 innings did just that. The hard throwing right hander dominated, throwing 6 shutout innings of 2 hit ball and out 7 while getting his 1st win in the process. Manager Edgardo Alfonzo when asked about his pitching this week said “They’ve been great, the plans they’ve set before the games this week have been working and we’re going to stick with them going on the road.”
All four of these guys had a great week contributing to the wins and showing exciting potential for the rest of the season. Going into the road stand Alfonzo is confident the teams great play will continue saying “The pitcher’s are doing their jobs and our hitting is doing a lot better over the past couple of games.” Alfonso closed out his interview by saying “It’s important with a young college lineup like ours to keep them fresh because this is something new to them.”
The Brooklyn Cyclones have hit a nice stride here in the middle of July going into a big road stand. If the pitching and offense continues to work together and pick each other up I can see Brooklyn taking all three of these series on the road and taking a commanding lead in the Penn League. There is a lot of great young talent on the Cyclones and fans should be excited to watch them develop into future prospects for the Met’s organization.