Ducks lose Game 2 to Sugar Land, Atlantic League Championship Series tied 1-1

Welcome to the best-of-three Atlantic League Championship Series. That’s what it’s become after a 7-0 Ducks loss to Sugar Land Skeeters in Game 2 Wednesday night that evened up the best-of-five final in front of 3,059 fans at Bethpage Ballpark in Central Islip.

It was the first time the Ducks had lost in the playoffs this year. They swept the High Point Rockers in the Liberty Division Championship Series last week and beat the Skeeters in Game 1 of the championship series Tuesday night.

The next three games, which will determine if the Ducks capture their first league championship since 2013, will be played this weekend in Sugar Land, Texas, with Game 3 coming on Friday night after a travel day Thursday.

Ducks ace Darin Downs turned in an unusually rough performance. Downs allowed six runs (four earned) and six hits in three innings. He struck out five and walked one.

Downs was brilliant in a Game 1 victory over the Rockers last week, but Ducks manager Wally Backman moved the ace to Game 2 of the championship series because Downs’ wife is expecting a baby any day, putting Downs availability for a winner-take-all Game 5 Sunday in question, Backman said before the game. 

“I don’t think anybody’s worried. [The Skeeters] played a good game today," Downs said. "They scored some runs and [Carlos Pimentel] pitched really good. I think we’re going to bounce back. We’re going to fight. It’s 1-1, so it’s anybody’s series.”

Sugar Land starter and former Duck Pimentel pitched seven shutout innings. He allowed five hits, struck out seven and walked two.

"[Pimentel]  threw a lot of first pitch strikes and got ahead of the hitters," Backman said. "He was able to expand the zone. We chased way too much tonight.”

Sugar Land jumped on Downs early, tagging him for three runs in the first inning. Rico Noel singled to lead off the game and scored moments later on Wynton Bernard’s double to left field. Three batters later, Albert Cordero’s two run home run gave the Skeeters a 3-0 lead.

“I thought I felt OK," Downs said about the first inning. "They just jumped on a couple of good pitches, made some good swings . . . I was just falling behind and not really locating my fastball.

“I felt good but, at times, didn’t make some good pitches when I had to.”

Sugar Land scored two more runs in the second inning when an error by Ducks second baseman Steve Lombardozzi allowed Zach Borenstein and Javier Betancourt to score and increase the lead to 5-0. Borenstein’s RBI single in the third inning drove in Jason Martinson and gave the Skeeters a 6-0 lead.

The Ducks had two great chances to score and squandered them both. They had runners on first and third with one out in the second, but Vladimir Frias and Daniel Fields struck out. David Washington hit into an inning-ending double play with runners on first and third in the sixth. 

“We know what we have to do and we know how to execute the pitches that we need to execute, we just didn’t do it tonight,” Backman said.

Simmons to Start Game 3

Seth Simmons will start Game 3 for the Ducks Friday night in Sugar Land, Texas. Simmons allowed one run and two hits in seven innings in Ducks’ 3-2 victory over the High Point Rockers in Game 3 of the Liberty Division Championship.