Photo courtesy of Dom Savino/Brooklyn Cyclones Twitter account
The Brooklyn Cyclones came into Labor Day weekend in a very rough spot, needing to win two-out-of-three games minimum to make the postseason.
And I mean bare minimum, as the assumption would be in that scenario that the Aberdeen IronBirds would lose all three of their games against the Hudson Valley Renegades.
Well, it turned out, Brooklyn would win their first two games while the IronBirds and Renegades split their games in that time.
That meant the Cyclones were one game up on the IronBirds and one game back of the Renegades. The scenarios were endless. Cyclones win, they’re in was the simplest formula.
Aberdeen held the tiebreaker on the Brooklyn Cyclones coming into Monday, meaning that if the Cyclones lost and they won, Aberdeen was in and Brooklyn was out. If Hudson Valley won, Brooklyn was in regardless of whether they won or lost on Monday.
Hudson Valley was a game up on Brooklyn, with the latter holding the tiebreaker between those two teams. Aberdeen held the tiebreaker against Brooklyn, though, meaning the Cyclones really had to finish one game ahead of them.
Well, Edgardo Alfonzo eliminated the confusion about these 100s of scenarios and situations on Saturday night.
“I told the guys we cannot do anything about the standings, we have to win. We need to win and wait until the end for the standings. Just need to concentrate and play hard.”
And win they did.
Long Island native, Frank Valentino, who grew up a New York Mets fan took the mound for the Cyclones in the biggest game of the season in front of a small contingent of fans, with poor weather in the forecast most of the day.
Valentino, 24, was pitching for the Florence Freedom of the Frontier League three months ago and now he was pitching the deciding game for an affiliate of the organization he grew up rooting for.
Not only did he pitch, but he might have tossed his best start of the season. The right-hander went 5 1/3 innings and allowed only one run, one hit, and two walks while striking out nine batters.
“It was very special, but no matter where you play, you end up doing it for those guys, the guys in the clubhouse, the guys who are there for you every single game,” Valentino said. “That’s what really means the most. I’ve heard it plenty, it’s not going to get old, being from New York and being from Long Island. It’s really special.”
Through the first 2 1/3 innings of the game, it was unclear where the game was headed, with the Yankees and Cyclones gridlocked in a scoreless tie.
That changed when, with runners on first and second in the bottom of the third inning, Wilmer Reyes hit an RBI double to score Jake Ortega from second thereby starting the countdown of outs needed to finish the win. Luke Ritter put an exclamation point on that with a two-run double, extending the lead to 3-0.
Valentino gave a run back in the bottom of the inning, but that didn’t matter because Robinson Cano extended the lead to 4-1 with a sharp groundout to the Yankees’ first baseman that scored another run for the Cyclones, thereby restoring their four-run lead.
Hopefully, Cano will be helping the major league team complete a special playoff run of their own.
Once Valentino was pulled, the team relied on some new faces in Nick MacDonald and Reyson Santos to shut the door and seal the Cyclones’ fate, along with Hunter Parsons.
They did just that, combining for 3 2/3 innings of shutout baseball.
Santos was the pitcher asked to finish the job and with a runner on second and two outs, got strike one on Carlos Gallardo. He promptly got strike two on the next pitch, and then got him to swing and miss for strike three.
Ballgame, playoffs here they come.
The Brooklyn Cyclones’ limited number of fans in the stands erupted in joy, with the team not only managing to make the playoffs, but win the McNamara Division which was not necessarily what they were even focused on entering the weekend.
For the first time in seven years, the Cyclones will be playing in the postseason with their last appearance coming in 2012.
On top of it, it was a personal accomplishment for Edgardo Alfonzo, who has made his first postseason as manager of the team in his three years in charge.
“It’s a great feeling because the guys put it all together and they deserve it more than anybody else,” Alfonzo said. “They deserve it. From the first day until now, we demanded that those guys play hard and they did. When you play hard and never give up, that’s the result you want to get in the end, going to the playoffs.”
“For a lot of these guys, it’s their first time in pro baseball and going into the playoffs at that point is huge. It’s something they should want every year. I think it’s so important to play hard because when you do that, something special can happen.”
Something special did happen this weekend in Brooklyn and, hopefully, that continues when they start their three-game series with the Wild Card winning Hudson Valley Renegades on Wednesday.
