Minutes after watching relief pitcher Mike Williams lose a 4-0 lead, Teddy Fallon took the mound in the eighth inning in front of a stunned crowd.
Much to the disappointment of the fans, Fallon didn't fare much better in his two-thirds innings on the mound. The right hander issued three walks, gave up a costly triple and surrendered two runs before leaving to showers of boos.
The combined six runs, three of which were earned, given up by Williams and Fallon were too much for the Spikes (5-7) to overcome as they fell to the visiting Mahoning Valley Scrappers, 6-4.
While Fallon (0-1) was tagged with the loss and the Scrappers' Brian Grening (2-0) earned the win, State College manager Gary Robinson didn't pin the loss solely on the pitching.
"These are young players," Robinson said.
"But they have to understand that the other teams have young players too. We played the game better for seven innings and unfortunately the game is nine innings.
"We just didn't do the things we needed to do we got a little sloppy defensively, had a lead off error and had some walks that we didn't need."
The Spikes had two errors, one of which was committed by third baseman Patrick Irvine at the beginning of the critical three-run eighth inning.
Mahoning Valley's Kyle Smith, who reached on the error, would later come around to score.
"It's definitely disappointing," Irvine said. "The error kind of opened the flood gates, and I put most of that on me. It's definitely something that we can learn from."
Robinson tried to move past the negatives of the final three innings and wanted to focus on the positive things his ball club did. While the manager called the final three innings "a learning experience," he was very pleased with the way two of his younger players performed.
Jason Erickson, who made his first professional start, put the Spikes in a great position early in the game by pitching four innings of one-hit baseball.
Erickson managed to record two strikeouts in the start, and he even displayed his defensive skills by fielding a ball while coming off of the mound to help turn a double play.
Robinson said he knew the right hander was capable of such a performance, but he was still worried because he felt Erickson's pitches, especially his fastball, were a little short of his best.
"I like his arm," Robinson said. "He just battled tonight. He has a much better fastball than he had tonight, but he just battled his fanny off, and I was very proud of him. He worked the plate good up and down and did a great job."
The Spikes were also aided by the pitching of Phillip Irwin and Victor Black, who entered the game in relief of Erickson.
The two pitchers both held the Scrappers hitless in their inning of work and also recorded two strikeouts apiece.
Erickson said overall he was pleased with his performance and said he will remain focused on his next start. While he felt his performance went well, he knows that the no decision is just part of the game.
"It's baseball," Erickson said. "Sometimes this kind of stuff happens and you just have to forget about it and come out and do a good job the next game."
