Game versus Cubs

Our last game of the regular season was a good one and so I think we’ll go inning by inning for this one.

Pre-Game
One of the schools had an event last night and of course we have three players from that school so we had just nine players, with Sean, Jeremy F, and Noff all missing. We decided that we were going to give Jared the chance to go two that he didn’t have on Saturday and also we wanted to give Nick one more shot, though under some pretty controlled conditions. Having only 9 players was nice for them since it meant a lot of opportunities to play the infield. Last time we played the Cubs we scored a whole bunch in the top of the 6th inning to come back and win the game by a run. We started the game late because the ump went to the wrong field.

The Game

Austin and Cameron both started off the game with strike-outs. Nick singled and then managed to steal second and third. Unfortunately, Mandel got robbed by the shortstop on a liner and so we don’t score in the inning. After recording two outs, the Cubs manage to load the bases on Jared, before a dribbler back to him at the mound which gets us the third out. 0-0 after 1

They switch pitchers here and we take advantage with a single by Justin, who steals second. When he steals third they over throw the third baseman, on a throw that shouldn’t have been made, and so we get a run and essentially a new inning. Alec strikes out. Jeremy Me singles, gets to second when Jared walks. He steals third and is singled home by Matt S. Austin then singles home Jared, before Cameron grounds out to end the inning. 3-0 BoSox

Jared gets a nice brake when Austin comes up with a well hit ball into center. The next batter rockets a double into deep left, which Cameron does a nice job of getting to and getting back in. Jared hits the next batter. The player on second then steals third on a wild pitch. Next pitch gets by Jeremy Me, who easily recovers the ball. He likely could have made the tag by himself, but he tosses it to Jared who just barely misses the tag. Jared bares down and strikes out that batter and gets the next batter to ground to first. 3-1 after two.

The supposed heart of our order, Nick, Jeremy Ma, and Justin, go down 1-2-3 including 2 strikeouts against the same pitcher we saw in the second. On comes Nick. Nick once again has a rough outing. He ends up lasting only six batters, walking four striking out two. So much for his going two innings. We bring in Justin who strikes out a player to end the inning. Only one run from that inning is fortunate and we maintain a 3-2 lead.

The next inning we stake off. Alec, Jeremy Me, and Jared all hit doubles, followed by a single by Matt S which drives in Jared for our third run. Austin hits into a double play and while Cameron singles Nick pops out. Still we get 3 more runs and go up 6-2.

Justin comes in for his second inning, strikes out the first batter, gets lucky when the second batter CRUSHES the ball, but it hits a tree giving Jeremy Me just enough time to catch the ball for out two. While the next batter walks, the last batter lines out to Justin at the mound. Justin looked very sharp in his inning and a third.

We go down in order in the 5th. The ump has to ump the next game and wants this to be the last inning. However, when Jeremy Ma mows them down, I point out that if we had started on time we still wouldn’t have hit an hour and a half of play time. I get him to agree to play the sixth. While Jeremy Me singles to start things off, we don’t do anything else.

In comes Jeremy Me with a four run lead to protect. And basically our fielding falls apart. There is just one bad fielding play after another. On one Alec calls for a ball which he can’t get to, but Cameron or Justin would have been able to get to. So that’s a hit. On another, it goes through Cameron’s legs at short on a not particularly well hit ball, he simply didn’t get down. On yet another Jeremy Ma fails to come up with a throw at first. Three runs end up scoring before we can get things back into control and we come away with a 6-5 victory. Jeremy Me pitched incredibly well, facing 8 batters on only 17 pitches. Our defense simply failed to come through for him.

Post Game

I give a very upbeat talk about how we played well. And even when things started to go poorly we didn’t lose our cool and we prevailed. We gave the game ball to Alec. Everyone felt real good going into the playoffs which is great. The twin’s mother took the time after the game to thank us for all that we’ve done with them which was real nice of her to do. Also nice was that Steve and I ran into Cameron and his mother at the restaurant we’d gone to after the game and so we had a great dinner talking to him and his mother.

There’ll be another update tomorrow as I outline the playoffs and how we’re approaching them.