It’s getting hard to figure out who’s hotter, the Brooklyn Cyclones or their shortstop Robert McIntyre.
The 15-8 Cyclones have won seven in a row and are in first place in the McNamara Division of the New York-Penn League. Meanwhile, McIntyre who had his nine-game hitting streak halted in yesterday’s 5-4 win over the visiting Jamestown Jammers (10-12), is starting to develop into the player manager Edgar Alfonzo believed he’d be.
Before the season, Alfonzo paid his shortstop the ultimate compliment.
“He [McIntyre] reminds me of my brother [Mets second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo],” the Cyclones manager said. “Because late in a game you want him in there. He’s a clutch hitter.”
That would be the Mets’ Alfonzo of 2000, not the injury-riddled, playing-through-back-pain, average Joe we’ve seen this year.
So what’s different in the batter’s box now, from the beginning of the season?
“I feel more relaxed,” McIntyre said, “and when you’re doing well you’re just in there taking good swings. Not swinging at any bad pitches.”
Alfonzo agreed.
“He [McIntyre] is more patient at the plate now [than he was the first few games],” he said.
McIntyre, who grew up in Tampa, attended Hillsborough High School. Sound familiar? That’s where Dwight Gooden played, as well as former Met Derek Bell and Dodger slugger Gary Sheffield.
Like his predecessors, the big leagues appear to be in McIntyre’s future, but for now he’ll try to make Alfonzo’s compliment stand-up.
In his third year of “A” ball, McIntyre has four home runs, 13 RBIs and has scored 14 runs.
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First baseman Jay Caligiuri was the hitting star in yesterday’s win, going 2-for-4, with a two-run homer in the third. Pitcher Ross Peeples improved his record to 3-0 on the season.
Catcher Michael Jacobs will be joining the Capital City Bombers, the Mets’ Class A farm team in Columbia, S.C. He is the first Cyclones player to earn a promotion. With the Cyclones, he batted .288.