A double day

Extra-base hits power State College past Auburn

Guy Cipriano

UNIVERSITY PARK — At the end of the rainbow, the State College Spikes have another chance to reach .500.

CDT/Nabil K. Mark

A double rainbow appears between Medlar Field at Lubrano Park and Mt. Nittany during the third inning of the State College Spikes game against Auburn July 3, 2009. CDT/Nabil K. Mark

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On a Friday night, when an array of colors hovered over Mount Nittany, the Spikes improved to 7-8 with an 11-3 victory over the Auburn Doubledays at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.

Reaching .500 this deep into a season has symbolic purposes for the Spikes’ ardent supporters. The team hasn’t evened its record after June since Aug. 23, 2007.

The Spikes faltered twice in their attempts to become a .500 team this homestand, falling to Mahoning Valley on Sunday and Tuesday.

Today, they take another run at the mark when they meet Williamsport at 1 p.m.

A short gap between games could be nice considering the way the Spikes hit Friday.

The team set a season-high for runs and recorded 14 hits, including seven doubles, two triples and a homer.

The offensive approach was clear from the beginning and represented a product of conversations with hitting coach Brandon Moore. The Spikes were trying to hammer fastballs.

“Our hitting coach really had a point of telling us to jump on the fastball in the zone,” second baseman Ty Summerlin said. “You can’t do a better job than what these guys did. Every fastball that was thrown in the zone we jumped on.”

In the seventh, the Spikes displayed multiple characteristics of a potentially solid offensive team to increase their lead from 4-2 to 7-2.

First, they showed discipline, with Evan Chambers beginning the inning with a walk against Jamie Lehman.

They then received a mulligan when Auburn second baseman Jonathan Fernandez turned his body to the bag too early on a probable double-play ball hit by Kyle Morgan.

Solid offenses know how to manufacture runs, and the Spikes moved toward grinding when David Rubinstein dropped a sacrifice bunt to move Chambers to third and Morgan to second.

Solid offenses also have a big bopper opponents sometimes refuse to challenge. The Spikes might have found theirs in Aaron Baker, an 11th-round pick from Oklahoma, who Auburn manager Dennis Holmberg elected to intentionally walk.

Finally, solid teams receive big hits with runners in scoring position. Pat Irvine gave the Spikes one when he doubled to right-center, allowing Chambers, Morgan and Baker to score.

“That’s huge to get that big inning, especially when the game is still close,” Irvine said. “You feel a lot more comfortable, the pitchers feel a lot more comfortable.”

For the first time this homestand, the offense produced throughout the game, recording hits in six of eight innings. The Spikes scored twice in the first. They then padded the lead by recording four straight two-out doubles and scoring four runs in the eighth.

Morgan hit the ball hard in both innings. He tied the game 2-2 by hitting a two-run homer off Brian Justice in the first. The homer was the Spikes’ second of the season.

Almost half of the lineup doubled in the eighth. Chambers started the stretch with his first professional hit. Rubinstein and Baker followed a double by Morgan with RBI doubles of their own. All four doubles were lined to right field.

“What’s the mathematic chances of that?” manager Gary Robinson said. “I don’t know what it is, but I do know all four of them were squared up.”

The first seven batters in the order recorded extra-base hits.

Leadoff hitter Brock Holt went 2 for 5 with a double and triple and Summerlin, who batted second, went 3 for 5 with a double. Baker, who batted sixth, went 3 for 4 with two doubles and scored twice, raising his batting average to .467 through four professional games. Catcher Miguel Mendez was the lone player to finish without a hit. Rubinstein’s single in the eighth extended his hitting streak to 10 games.

“It shows the potential of our offense,” Morgan said. “We were aggressive at fastballs in the zone that we could handle. Our approach was great. Everything seemed to work great for us tonight.

“I think we have a pretty solid lineup one through nine that is capable of putting up runs. I think tonight was just a glimpse of what we can do when everything is going well.”

The Spikes also received quality innings from two New York-Penn League veterans.

Right-hander Maurice Bankston, who started this season at Low-A West Virginia, started and allowed six hits and two runs in five innings. Left-hander Mike Felix, who started this season at High-A Lynchburg, allowed one run, but no hits, during the final four.

Bankston and Felix are familiar with Medlar Field and NY-PL hitters. Bankston made nine appearances for last year’s Spikes. Felix, a 2006 second-round draft pick, pitched 19 times for the ‘07 team.

Robinson compared Friday’s game to last month’s opener — with a reversed result. The Spikes started this season with a 15-2 loss to Williamsport on June 19.

“You can liken a win like this to the beating we took our Opening Night,” Robinson said. “We got hot, it got contagious and before you know it, we had thrown up a pretty sizeable lead on them.”