BayBears Beat The Wahoos

June 18, 2015

Marlon Byrd wants to return to the Cincinnati Reds starting lineup. The sooner the better.

Placed on the disabled list June 3 with a fractured wrist, Byrd started off his two-game rehab assignment with a bang Wednesday night for the Pensacola Blue Wahoos in front of 4,251 at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium.

Byrd crushed a game-tying, three-run home run deep to left field in the eighth inning. With two outs and the bases loaded for him again in the ninth, Byrd missed on a high fastball.

Despite the crowd’s excitement of having Byrd hitting No. 3 in the Blue Wahoos lineup the Mobile BayBears added two runs of its own in the top of the ninth to pull out a 5-3 victory in the opener of the five-game series between the rival teams that play on fields nearly an hour apart.

Byrd said his wrist felt good playing at game speed. He wasn’t sure how it would react but it was good enough to send a slider up in the zone over the left field wall.

“I had some good looks. I had some good swings,” Byrd said. “I wish I had come through on that last one.”

“The wrist felt fine, that was the big thing,” he added. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to feel. I didn’t know if it was going to bother me going full speed. You can practice all day long, but game speed is always different. But it felt good on every swing I took.”

On Wednesday with Pensacola, he struck out in his first at bat, lined out hard to the second baseman, lined out deep to the right fielder who chased his ball down, homered and finally struck out on a high fastball with the bases loaded to end the game.

Before fracturing his wrist, Byrd a 14-year major league veteran had hit 10 home runs and 25 RBIs with a .212 average for Cincinnati. If all goes well, Reds officials have said Byrd could return to the majors by the weekend. The Reds will reassess Byrd’s status after Thursday’s game at Pensacola.

“Marlon’s rehab has gone way better than I had ever anticipated,” said Reds manager Bryan Price to the Cincinnati media earlier in the day. “His broken bone is mending quickly. He put a lot of hard work into being able to come back so quickly.”

Pensacola manager Pat Kelly joked he would like to keep Byrd in the Blue Wahoos lineup a little longer.

“That was terrific,” Kelly said. “We hadn’t done much at all offensively. Next thing you know he ties the game in one at bat.”

Meanwhile, Pensacola starter Wandy Peralta, who had lost three in a row by giving up 13 earned runs in 13.1 innings, had a solid outing. He allowed two runs, one earned in 6.2 innings on seven hits, two walks and struck out five.

Pensacola also benefited from a 3-5 night by shortstop Zach Vincej, along with multi-hit games by right fielder Jesse Winker (2-4), Kyle Waldrop (2-3) and Beau Amaral (2-4).

Comments

One Response to “BayBears Beat The Wahoos”

  1. Sage 2 on June 18th, 2015 3:01 pm

    Please just post when the Bruised Yahoos win.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News, Sports