Brooklyn Boro

Medina finally rewarded for mound mastery

Cyclones’ Lefty Picks up First Win in 3-2 Victory over Staten Island

July 19, 2017 By John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Jose Carlos Medina finally notched his first win of the summer Tuesday night with a six-inning gem against arch rival Staten Island at Coney Island’s MCU Park. Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Cyclones
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Jose Carlos Medina has been the Brooklyn Cyclones’ most consistent starting pitcher during the team’s dismal start to the 2017 campaign.

And now, he finally has a win to show for it.

“[Medina] is the guy who keeps us in the game every time,” Cyclones first-year manager Edgardo Alfonzo raved after the 6-foot-2 southpaw from Culiacan, Mexico tossed six strong innings in a 3-2 victory over arch rival Staten Island Tuesday night in front of 6,415 fans at Coney Island’s MCU Park.

“He knows how to pitch. It’s good to have his first win today,” Alfonzo added.

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Medina, who won’t turn 21 until Aug. 25, is already in his fifth season with the Mets’ organization.

He started with the Dominican Summer League Mets back in 2013, and has slowly worked his way through the Gulf Coast and Appalachian leagues before landing in Brooklyn this summer.

Though he boasted the best earned-run average of any starter on the Baby Bums’ staff entering his sixth outing of the campaign, Medina (1-3) was winless in each of those outings.

That changed Tuesday as Medina limited the McNamara Division-leading Yankees (20-8) to a run on three hits with five strikeouts and three walks, marking the third time this season he has held an opponent to one earned run or fewer. He also lowered his staff-best ERA to 2.41 in the process.

After yielding a run-scoring triple to Staten Island’s Leonardo Molina in the top of the second inning, Medina worked in and out of trouble over the next two frames before finishing up strong.

He retired the final eight batters he faced to complete his second-longest outing of the summer. Medina went a season-high seven innings against Connecticut here on July 2, and logged six frames at Mahoning Valley on July 13 in his previous start.

The Cyclones made sure his solid effort didn’t go to waste this time around, taking the lead for good when Reed Gamache snapped a 1-1 tie with an RBI double in the bottom of the fifth.

Brooklyn stretched that advantage to 3-1 in the sixth as Carlos Sanchez’s ground-rule double down the left-field line plated Walter Rasquin.

With a two-run lead to protect, the Brooklyn bullpen came through as Tony Dibrell surrendered a run on two hits with three strikeouts over two innings before Connor O’Neill worked around a hit in the ninth to seal his second save of the campaign.

“The bullpen is important,” said Alfonzo, whose struggling club improved to 8-20 on the summer with just its second win in three games since snapping a five-game slide.

“You continue to pitch the way we are, it’s going to be great.” 

It was a rare night of error-free baseball for the Cyclones, who have spent most of the first month of this 76-game grind of a short season booting seemingly easy plays and making errant throws.

First baseman Matt Winaker, a former Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year at Stanford, whom the Mets selected in the fifth round of last month’s MLB Draft, was at the forefront of Brooklyn’s fielding resurgence.

He made a pair of diving stops in the infield and contributed two hits and a walk to the offense as the Cyclones improved to 3-4 against Staten Island this season.

“I like the way [Winaker] played tonight,” Alfonzo said of the 21-year-old California native. “He should be playing with confidence. Do the right thing and the results will be positive.”

The Cyclones will need many more positive results if they hope to reel in the Baby Bombers, who stand 12 games in front of them in the division race. Brooklyn is currently nine games out of the New-York Penn League’s lone wild-card spot.

* * *

In other local pro-sports news, the New York Islanders continued to reshape their coaching staff, but this time it was a move from within the organization, rather than a new face on the bench.

The team announced Wednesday morning that Greg Cronin, an assistant coach with the Isles for the past three seasons, would now take on the role of Associate Coach, a promotion that will make him head coach Doug Weight’s right-hand man.

“Greg’s hockey knowledge and experiences of over 30 years in the coaching profession are an asset to our coaching staff,” Weight said.

“He’s run our penalty-kill the past several seasons and each year, it’s been one of the best in the league. He has a tireless work ethic on the bench during games, at practice and in meetings. His desire to get the best out of every player, to help achieve our goal of winning is impressive and I’m thrilled to continue to work with him.”  

Cronin was originally hired as an Isles’ assistant on June 16, 2014, and is actually in his second stint with the club, initially serving as an assistant with the organization from 1998-2003, and as head coach of the team’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, from 2003-2005.

Prior to re-joining the Islanders in 2014, the Arlington, MA native spent three seasons behind the bench as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs. 

Weight has already added former NHL veterans Kelly Buchberger, Luke Richardson, Scott Gomez and Fred Brathwaite to his staff during this offseason overhaul following his own promotion from interim to full-time head coach of the team shortly after last season concluded with the team finishing just shy of an Eastern Conference playoff berth.

 


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