Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - LOWELL If starter Wayne Lundgren hadn't had a hand in it literally Lowell fans would have seen their
first no-hitter in 70 years.
Jason Tuttle beat out an infield hit off the outstretched hand of Lundgren leading off the game, and it was the only hit allowed by four Lowell pitchers as the
Spinners beat the Vermont Expos 4-1 in the seven-inning second game last night, earning a doubleheader split in front of a light rain-soaked turnout but with
all 5,000 tickets sold at LeLacheur Park.
The Expos won the suspended first game 8-5.
Tuttle chopped a ball to the left of the mound, and the 6-7 Lundgren reached out with his right hand but only succeeded in slowing the ball down in front of
charging shortstop Ignacio Suarez.
Suarez fielded it cleanly and got off a strong and accurate throw on the run, but Tuttle streaked across the bag just ahead of the ball for a hit. Tuttle then
stole second and came around to score on a pair of infield outs.
Lundgren set down the next 12 hitters he faced, and Kevin Ool, Brian Marshall and Zak Basch finished up the fourth
one-hitter in the Spinners's eight-year history.
"At the time I was thinking the grass is wet and it's going to be a tough play anyway, and I was just worried about staying on my feet," Suarez said.
"But he reached out for the ball ... and he has a pretty good reach."
Too good, as it turned out.
The last minor-league no-hitter thrown by a Lowell pitcher was on Aug. 16, 1933, by Larry Bishop for the Lowell Lauriers against Brockton. It was the second of
two straight no-hitters by Bishop.
The last one-hitter recorded by the Spinners was on June 26, 2000, when Felix Villegas, Brian Bentley and Dan Giese performed the feat against the New Jersey
Cardinals.
The Spinners took a 2-1 lead in the third against Nick Long after Suarez reached on an error by Vermont shortstop Ja'Mar Clanton. Melvin Reyes tripled to
straightaway center field to score Suarez with the tying run, then scored himself when Clanton's relay got past third baseman Tim Sweeney.
The Expos threatened to tie up the game in the sixth when Ool walked Tuttle and hit Brad Ditter with a pitch. But Marshall came on to get the final two outs,
and Basch set down the Expos in order on five pitches in the ninth to record his fifth save.
Jim Buckley's two-run homer in the sixth put the game out of the Expos's reach.
Vermont, threatening to break Batavia's 16-59 record in 1981 as the worst in New York-Penn League history, won for only the second time in 23 road games in the
suspended game. The Expos are now 9-38 overall this season.
The only way to lose to the worst team in the league is to play worse, and the Spinners did exactly that after the resumption of the suspended game was delayed
25 minutes by yet more rain.
The Spinners committed three errors, and there were a multitude of plays that should have been made and weren't.
Hard-luck Davey Penny got three straight groundballs when play resumed, and Lowell infielders butchered them all. Saloman Manriquez's sacfly put the Expos in
front 1-0.
The Spinners briefly took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the inning without benefit of a hit off Clint Everts. Scooter Jordan walked and stole second, then while
running on a pitch scored all the way from second on a passed ball.
Two more walks and an infield out by Claudio Arias brought in the second run.
But Vermont took the lead for good in the third on an RBI single by Sweeney and a two-run homer by Lorvin Louisa, then added another unearned run in the fifth
and made it 6-2 on a sacfly by Kory Casto in the sixth.
Jon de Vries's had an RBI single in the bottom of the inning for the Spinners. but the Expos put the game away in the seventh on a sacfly by Oscar Bernazard and
a double by Clanton.
