It was quite a Saturday for the Cicero-North Syracuse baseball program, beyond the two games it played at the Gillette Road complex where it lost to Baldwinsville and beat Binghamton Seton Catholic.
Late that night, it was announced that C-NS graduate Patrick Corbin, a left-handed pitcher, was getting called up to make his Major League Baseball debut for the Arizona Diamondbacks, a start Monday against the Miami Marlins.
Corbin, who had spent the first part of this season with the Double-A Mobile BayBears of the Southern League, had a full spring-training look from the Diamondbacks before going to Mobile.
However, when Arizona starter Josh Colmenter got off to a terrible start (0-2, 9.82 ERA), the Diamondbacks decided Saturday to move him to the bullpen, which made room for Corbin’s call-up.
In four starts at Mobile, Corbin, who will not turn 23 until July 19, has gone 2-0 with a 1.67 earned run average. He has pitched 27 innings, striking out 25 against eight walks, for a walk/strikeout ratio better than 3:1.
This capped a day that didn’t start well for the C-NS baseball side as, in the makeup of last Monday’s weather-postponed game against state no. 8-ranked Baldwinsville, the Northstars fell to the Bees 4-1.
Kyano Cummings got the start against B’ville’s Scott Blewett, but surrendered single runs in each of the first two innings. Will Apps relieved Cummings in the fifth, with the score 2-1, only to give up runs in the sixth and seventh innings.
Eric Hamilton drove in his team’s lone run in the bottom of the fifth, the only time they would solve Blewett, who gave up just four hits and walked four while recording four strikeouts.
C-NS did recover later in the day to beat Binghamton Seton Catholic 20-2 in a game made up from an April 21 rainout. After Seton Catholic scored twice in the top of the first, the Northstars got seven runs in the bottom of the first and kept going from there, eventually producing 17 hits.
Vince Mallaro and Paul Vinciguerra each had three hits, with Vinciguerra joining Hamilton and Brandon Kapcinski in getting two RBIs apiece. Mallaro and Owen Dziados each scored three times. Kapcinski pitched four innings to earn the win, with Geoff Holmes going the rest of the way in relief.
Before all this, C-NS faced the combined Syracuse West squad last Thursday, nearly seeing a late lead slip away before the Northstars held on for a 3-2 victory.
Single runs in the first, fourth and seventh innings, driven in by Hamilton, Mike Mento and Cory Burrows, appeared enough for ace Joe Pokrentowski, who accumulated 10 strikeouts.
But in the bottom of the seventh Pokrentowski tired, giving up two runs on Matt Thompson’s single and loading the bases with nobody out. Apps relieved Pokrentowski, and immediately got a grounder hit back to him, leading to a 1-2-3 double play. Another groundout ended the game.
