Mets Minors: Rainy Lara Rocks In Gnats Victory

Savannah Sand Gnats, 4 Rome Braves 0

It was raining goose eggs in Rome all day Sunday as Sand Gnats righty Rainy Lara baffled Braves hitters with six innings of two-hit scoreless baseball, and the Gnats defeated the Rome Braves 4-0 to split the four game set to open the season.

Rainy Lara (1-0) handled the first six innings with absolute expertise as he allowed just two hits and a walk, while striking out six. He was relieved by Brett Mitchell, who redeemed himself after a shaky outing against Rome in the season opener by pitching two scoreless frames and yielded just a single. Hunter Carnevale spelled Mitchell with a perfect ninth punching out two. It was a display of pitching dominance for the Gnats overall.

Savannah (2-2) put up a three spot in the third inning, opening the inning with back to back singles by the red hot Brandon Nimmo and Phillip Evans. Jayce Boyd worked out a walk to load the bases for Kevin Plawecki, who promptly lined an RBI single to center that brought home Nimmo. With the bases still full of Gnats, Stephen Sabol followed Plawecki with a single to right, plating Evans and Boyd to give Savannah a 3-0 lead. Savannah added a run in the fourth after Brandon Nimmo drilled a two-bagger and Jayce Boyd pushed him across with a two-out single. This made the score 4-0, which stood as the final result.

Brandon Nimmo is hitting .471 so far in the young season, while Satish’s guy Kevin Plawecki rocks a .467 average to this point as well. The top three hitters in the lineup, Nimmo/Evans/Boyd, all had three hits in Sunday’s game.