For finale, IronPigs fall in 12 innings

FROM THE MORNING CALL

Really, could it have ended any other way?

First and third, nobody out in the second— didn't score.

Runner at second, one out in the fifth and eighth — didn't score either time.

Second and third, one out in the 10th — you guessed it.

The IronPigs couldn't capitalize on Neil Sellers' game-tying home run in the ninth, falling 4-3 in 12 innings to Scranton Monday afternoon that brought not only the 2010 season to a close but also Dave Huppert's tenure as Lehigh Valley manager.

The Phillies announced Sunday night that Huppert's contract would not be renewed this winter.

Monday's crowd of 10,000, the 21st capacity crowd of the season, sets the IronPigs' average this season at 9,227, the highest in minor league baseball.

The IronPigs finished Huppert's third and final season with a 58-86 record. Nearly 40 percent of those losses — 35 — were by one run.

They also finished 3-11 in extra-inning games.

Sellers sent the game into extra-innings with a dramatic one-out solo homer, his sixth of the year and second in two nights, to tie the game at 3-3. The IronPigs had a chance an inning later to pull out a win when a balk left runners at second and third with one out. But Ozzie Chavez broke for home on contact on a line drive by Cody Ransom that was hit right at Yankees shortstop Eric Bruntlett and was easily doubled off.

Brandon Laird's RBI double in the top of the 12th inning, a drive that replays showed hit off a rail above the right-field wall and bounced back onto the field, drove in the go-ahead run for Scranton (87-56), which faces a lengthy bus ride to Columbus Tuesday to open the International League playoffs Wednesday night against the Clippers. John Van Benschoten pitched a perfect bottom of the inning to save the game for Amauri Sanit (3-2).

Joe Savery ended a rough 2011 season with his second three-hit game, knocking in the first two IronPigs' runs. The Phillies' first-round pick in 2007 as a left-handed pitcher out of Rice, Savery lost his spot in the rotation this year and finished the season with a 1-12 record and a 4.66 ERA, allowing 14 1/2 baserunners per nine innings.

But in four starts as a designated hitter late in the season, Savery — who was an All-American hitter as well as a pitcher — hit .500 (9-for-18) with two doubles and three RBIs. For the season, including four at-bats (with a homer) as a pinch-hitter, Savery hit .348 (16-for-46) with three doubles, a homer and five RBIs.

Savery nearly had his fourth hit in the eighth. But with the tying run on second, Scranton left fielder Chad Huffman retreated to the warning track to make a leaping, tumbling catch of Savery's slicing liner.

Jesus Montero, the Yankees' top prospect and the league's all-star catcher, gave Scranton a 1-0 lead in the first with one of the longest home runs in park history. Montero teed off on a 3-1 pitch from Drew Carpenter and sent it to the back of the lawn seating in front of the scoreboard, a shot estimated at 435 feet.

Carpenter allowed five hits, including another solo homer by Jorge Vazquez, in six innings.

http://www.mcall.com/sports/mc-ironpigs-0906-20100906,0,7136238.story