Baseball Review // Record-Journal Expos, 3 Middletown Mets, 2 May 30th, 2025 Buzzy Levin Field, Middletown CT (GHTBL)

Additional photos can be found in an album on Facebook here :::

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1771730713557142&type=3

Official Box Score :::

https://ghtbl.org/event/record-journal-expos-middletown-mets

  As the Record-Journal Expos headed into their second game of the season it was also on the road, making it feel like we'll be at Ceppa for most of July.   The thing about Connecticut weather is that this day was scheduled to be overcast and even rainy at times, but though I saw some light rain near Hamden during the day, it also got quite bright and hit near 80 at one point.  So you can never really believe what the weather says because what actually happens outside might be somewhat different.  

This was a nice night for baseball and I know I will soon be wishing it was like this again, when we get to that real heat, but this game also just seemed to fly right by.  Part of that might be due to the fact that the pitching of Charlie Hesseltine seemed to send the Mets three up and three down quite a bit, to the point where it felt almost like it wasn't worth putting in my notes and just assuming that's what happened if I didn't put anything else.

Although, Hunter Espinosa did well on the mound as well, holding the Expos to only three runs- but it was just one run enough to beat them.  In the top of the third inning, Expos Catcher and all around team leader AJ Henrickson would double in Dante LaRosa, making it 1-0.  Then, with two outs in the top of the fifth inning, Luis Delgado would drive in two more runs with a double, giving the Expos their three runs.  Luis Delgado has been quite the source of offense this season for the Expos, even only with this being their second game.

As the Mets trailed 3-0, in the bottom of the sixth Sean Jefferson hit a two run homerun which put them right back in it.  This made it feel like the Middletown Mets could even walk it off in the seventh, but Charlie Hesseltine kept pushing and wasn't about to let that happen.  With 12 strike outs on the day, you have to imagine that four complete innings of batters being struck out, which is more than half of the game and just the type of thing that was happening right up until the very end of the game.

This win puts the Expos at 1-1 and with the week ahead it might give them the momentum to win all three games.   While the East Hartford Jets and M&T Bankers were supposed to play each other on Sunday night, it was rained out, which ultimately could have both teams shifting around their lineups.  The Expos will face M&T in Wethersfield on Tuesday night, and then make their way home on Thursday to play the Jets.  The Expos would finish out the week against the Jets, but in East Hartford, on Friday.  

Every season it feels like teams go through changes, and that's just life, but this season it feels like the teams that I've seen so far and that the Expos will play in the upcoming week have gone through the most changes.   This is not going to be the same Expos team that M&T saw last year, and that will not only take some getting used to for them but it's still about the Expos settling in themselves.  In a few weeks, when everyone gets used to the new players (and the players that didn't return) then the season will really shape up.