Ducks' mission on with Game 1 victory

The late-season rallying cry of the Ducks, "Finish the Mission," adorned the left-centerfield scoreboard in giant lettering at Bethpage Ballpark during pregame warm-ups.

After an Atlantic League-best 78-47 record and both first- and second-half division titles, the mission began in earnest Wednesday night with a 6-3 win in Game 1 of the Liberty Division Championship Series against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. Game 2 is tonight at 6:35 at Bethpage Ballpark.

"We won the first half, so we were guaranteed a playoff berth," manager Kevin Baez said before the game. "Playing the second half . . . is it meaningless? Nothing is meaningless. But the guys talked about getting that winning attitude and mind frame, and taking that into the second half and playoffs."

The Ducks sewed up a playoff berth by clinching the first half on July 4, then won the second half Sunday with a win over the Bridgeport Bluefish.

Southern Maryland earned its postseason spot by defeating the Bluefish in Tuesday's one-game playoff.

"The character on this team is great," said Baez, a player on the Ducks' 2004 championship team. "We could have just folded it up. We had a couple of meetings throughout and got that winning mind-set. Now, the playoffs are here."

Added outfielder Kraig Binick, the Chaminade graduate who led the Atlantic League with a .343 average: "I think in the second half, we were a great team, but we got relaxed. But now we're back to that first-half gear. It's crunch time. It is time to cut down on mistakes and win a championship."

After falling behind 2-1 in the top of the second, the Ducks mounted a rally in the bottom of the inning as Matt Padgett's opposite-field home run tied the score. Three batters later, Kennard Jones' single drove home Freddie Thon with the go-ahead run.

In the third, Padgett and Binick added RBI singles to make the score 6-2. Ducks starter Mike Loree, he of the 14-5 regular-season record and 1.98 ERA, allowed two runs and eight hits in six innings. He escaped a bases loaded, one-out jam in the fifth by getting Brian Barton to ground into a 6-6-3 double play.

"It was fastball away that I kept down in the zone, and thankfully he put it on the ground and Javier [Colina] did the rest. I think that fired everybody up."

Loree returned to the Ducks on Sept. 8 after a stint in the Pittsburgh Pirates' organization with Double-A Altoona (Pa.), where he posted a 1.17 ERA in four relief appearances.

"We were just excited that he would want to come back," Baez said. "We have a special thing going on within our team and organization. To lose him and have him come back means a lot to us."