Cyclones 8 – Renegades 3
The play of the Brooklyn Cyclones in the season’s first 36 games could be described as offensively challenged. Entering last night’s contest against the Hudson Valley Renegades, the team had a combined batting average of just .239, with only two players hitting above .300.
One of those players, center fielder Joe Holden, is trying his hardest to reverse that trend. His efforts last night were successful, as the Cyclones took advantage of four Hudson Valley errors to defeat the Renegades 8-3 in front of 7,834 fans at KeySpan Park.
Holden, a Wantagh native, is batting .371 this season after going 3-for-5 with a stolen base and a run scored last night. He also leads the team with three triples, but those numbers don’t mean a whole lot to him.
“Every now and then I’ll take a look at my batting average, but you can’t worry too much about stats,” said Holden. “If you’re 0-for-3 and you start putting pressure on yourself to get a hit, that’s when you start running into trouble.
Holden hasn’t been feeling too much pressure of late, as he extended his hitting streak to 11 games with last night’s performance. In those 11 games, Holden is batting an impressive .457 with 13 runs scored.
Things haven’t come easily for Holden, however. A fierce battle for the starting outfield positions left him on the bench for much of the first two weeks of the season.
“At the beginning of the year it was kind of frustrating,” Holden said, “but I put in a lot of hard work off the field, and eventually good things started to happen.”
“His approach is sound,” said Cyclones manager Mookie Wilson. “He believes he belongs, and I think that’s a key for any kid.”