51s’ Bowman finishes with better spread sheet in game vs. Dukes’ Hale

In a matchup rarer than a rainout in Las Vegas, a pair of pitchers armed with economics degrees from Princeton started for the 51s and Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon at Cashman Field.

Matthew Bowman was much more economical than David Hale — his former Princeton classmate — taking a perfect game into the fifth inning en route to his first win of the season for Las Vegas, which built a 10-0 lead on its way to a 10-4 victory over the Isotopes before a crowd of 3,048.

Hale, who took the loss in his major-league rehabilitation start for the Colorado Rockies, was roughed up for seven runs on eight hits in 1 2/3 innings.

Bowman (1-3), who allowed 17 runs in his first three starts and entered with a 10.93 ERA, retired the first 13 batters he faced before allowing a bloop single to Dustin Garneau.

“I had to make some mechanical adjustments to some things that were happening in my first few starts that I didn’t realize and I think they worked well,” Bowman, 23, said. “It was certainly encouraging.”

Rated the New York Mets’ No. 18 prospect by Baseball America, Bowman ran into trouble in the sixth, when he walked the leadoff batter and gave up three runs on four singles before departing.

“I tend to want to stick to what I do well. That’s really just getting ground balls for me,” he said. “I throw sinkers and I throw a lot of things that go downward, and you just hope they pound it into the ground and they don’t find too many holes.

“Today, for a while, that was working. It obviously came apart a little in the sixth, but you can’t get too hung up on ground balls getting through the infield.”

Besides pitching, Bowman also batted .293 and earned All-Ivy League honors at shortstop for Princeton, where he played from 2010 to 2012, when he was drafted in the 13th round by the Mets.

Hale was a third-round draft pick of the Atlanta Braves in 2009, after his junior year at Princeton. He and Bowman weren’t teammates, but they crossed paths when Hale went back to school in the falls of 2010 and 2011 to earn his degree.

“I went to school with him. We never played together, but I saw him every fall my freshman and sophomore year,” said Bowman, who took classes at Princeton the last two offseasons to earn his degree. “I said ‘Hi’ to him before the game.”

Darrell Ceciliani belted a pair of two-run home runs for the 51s (9-8), giving him four in his first Triple-A season.

“I was just trying to slow the game down, get some good pitches to hit and try to put some good swings on it,” said Ceciliani, who homered off Hale in the second and hit a deep drive to right-center off Aaron Laffey in the fifth. “Fortunately, I found some barrel.”

Dilson Herrera, Alex Castellanos and Johnny Monell added two hits apiece for Las Vegas, which has compiled 30 runs and 42 hits during its three-game winning streak.

■ NOTES — The Mets signed veteran infielder Brooks Conrad to a minor-league contract and assigned him to the 51s. ... In a matchup of top right-handed pitching prospects, Noah Syndergaard will start for Las Vegas in the first game of today’s 6 p.m. doubleheader against Albuquerque’s Jon Gray. Syndergaard (0-0, 4.70 ERA) is rated the No. 11 prospect in the game by Baseball America and Gray (0-2, 9.00) is ranked No. 24. ... Saturday’s rainout will be made up in today’s twinbill.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow him on Twitter: @tdewey33.