Something is wrong this season, and it's only game two.
Last season, we were left wondering what happened to us as we dropped the first two games, 6-5 and 15-12 to St. Mo's and the Waitlisters, respectively. Bad baserunning in one game and no hitting in the other. Did we get old that fast?
The Waitlisters rode that game to the regular season championship. Well we know what happened the rest of the season, despite some unevenness and the first game loss in the playoffs, we took the Cotton away from every other team - thanks to losing the first we beat every other team in the tournament on our way to the third straight Orinda Championship and seventh overall.
And by the looks of our first two games, we have not looked back. We scored 68 runs in the first couple, and this is now when there are no more nine inning games to fatten the stats. You could say, well last week was the Usual Victims...er Suspects, and they look to be worse than ever.
But the first game was against Bay Alarm nee Pennini's, who tied with Cal Gaels, Old Scouts and us in second place last year at 8-3. The game featured not one but two Conehead rallies (nine and twelve runs) and one thing that it really showed is that our outfielders know how to play the turf better than anyone else - numerous balls bounced over Alarmed fielders to give us lots of extra bases.
Sting had a three run bomb and Chuck hit a salami among his four hits, but the hitting star was Ol'd G. Thanks to Joe stopping him at third the first time when he could have walked home, G hit three triples to set a Conehead single game record. At least in the MCE (Modern Conehead Era i.e. Heffinator stats, which goes back to 2002). Yes - I looked it up. There were a few that hit two (including your truly) and some that hit two multiple times (including Larry and Chopper). But the team rarely hit more than three in a game, and G wiped them all off the record books with his performance against Bay Alarm. Tied Chuck for a game high five RBIs as well.
Honorable mentions for game balls go to Derek, who had a perfect five hits that might have been triples turned into singles, and Bruce who slashed four line shots of the kind we are getting used to, one a tweener that resulted in a home run. Haz also went yard.
The Bonehead award for the game goes to the entire Bay Alarm team for going ballistic over a runner called out for not tagging up in the middle innings. Granted, the ump completely blew the call, he must have been looking at the third base coach. However give him some credit - the coach definitely failed to tag up. And in their hotheaded defense - the game was still somewhat close, heat of the moment and all that. Still, partly because Bay Alarm completely lost it, it helped turn things against them. After that we stepped on the accelerator with our second Conehead inning to pull away.
In the Usual Suspect game...well what can we say. It was 13-0 before they came up to bat, and 22-2 after two. The ump even gave us two runs - we scored forty, but the ump had it down as a final of 42-3. Sting had two homers and five RBIs after his second at bat in the first inning, albeit one was of the Conehead variety. That alone would have won the game.
Markley was a perfect 5-5 with seven RBIs. Our new power hitter Chuck had another bomb, this one for three RBIs among four more hits. Gene turned in five RBIs along with Sting, and Lefty also was a perfect 5-5. All together nine players had four or five hits, everyone had at least three and scored at least twice, and drove in a run. You couldn't really pad your stats in this game - everyone did.
Comic relief was provided by yours truly when we improved the outfield by putting Chuck and me in the middle. I did my best Sting impression - watched a ball that I thought was right at Chuck but tailed more toward me, as it split us for a Suspect third run. Larry won't talk to me any more as it ruined his ERA. But at least Derek kept his scoreless inning streak going in the final inning (after the JFT shutout with Joe in Italy) - perhaps because he got the Suspects to hit away from RC where I was camped. Had 'smores too while I watched everyone else catch balls to end the game. They were delicious.
Milestones:
6/9:
Sting 50 hr (#2)
Chuck 20 gw (#2)
Joe 1200 ab (#3)
Ol' G 350 rbi (#12)
6/16
D 350 ab (#18)
Lefty 150 rbi (#19)
Markley 250 ab (#21)
Markley 100 r (#22)
Last season, we were left wondering what happened to us as we dropped the first two games, 6-5 and 15-12 to St. Mo's and the Waitlisters, respectively. Bad baserunning in one game and no hitting in the other. Did we get old that fast?
The Waitlisters rode that game to the regular season championship. Well we know what happened the rest of the season, despite some unevenness and the first game loss in the playoffs, we took the Cotton away from every other team - thanks to losing the first we beat every other team in the tournament on our way to the third straight Orinda Championship and seventh overall.
And by the looks of our first two games, we have not looked back. We scored 68 runs in the first couple, and this is now when there are no more nine inning games to fatten the stats. You could say, well last week was the Usual Victims...er Suspects, and they look to be worse than ever.
But the first game was against Bay Alarm nee Pennini's, who tied with Cal Gaels, Old Scouts and us in second place last year at 8-3. The game featured not one but two Conehead rallies (nine and twelve runs) and one thing that it really showed is that our outfielders know how to play the turf better than anyone else - numerous balls bounced over Alarmed fielders to give us lots of extra bases.
Sting had a three run bomb and Chuck hit a salami among his four hits, but the hitting star was Ol'd G. Thanks to Joe stopping him at third the first time when he could have walked home, G hit three triples to set a Conehead single game record. At least in the MCE (Modern Conehead Era i.e. Heffinator stats, which goes back to 2002). Yes - I looked it up. There were a few that hit two (including your truly) and some that hit two multiple times (including Larry and Chopper). But the team rarely hit more than three in a game, and G wiped them all off the record books with his performance against Bay Alarm. Tied Chuck for a game high five RBIs as well.
Honorable mentions for game balls go to Derek, who had a perfect five hits that might have been triples turned into singles, and Bruce who slashed four line shots of the kind we are getting used to, one a tweener that resulted in a home run. Haz also went yard.
The Bonehead award for the game goes to the entire Bay Alarm team for going ballistic over a runner called out for not tagging up in the middle innings. Granted, the ump completely blew the call, he must have been looking at the third base coach. However give him some credit - the coach definitely failed to tag up. And in their hotheaded defense - the game was still somewhat close, heat of the moment and all that. Still, partly because Bay Alarm completely lost it, it helped turn things against them. After that we stepped on the accelerator with our second Conehead inning to pull away.
In the Usual Suspect game...well what can we say. It was 13-0 before they came up to bat, and 22-2 after two. The ump even gave us two runs - we scored forty, but the ump had it down as a final of 42-3. Sting had two homers and five RBIs after his second at bat in the first inning, albeit one was of the Conehead variety. That alone would have won the game.
Markley was a perfect 5-5 with seven RBIs. Our new power hitter Chuck had another bomb, this one for three RBIs among four more hits. Gene turned in five RBIs along with Sting, and Lefty also was a perfect 5-5. All together nine players had four or five hits, everyone had at least three and scored at least twice, and drove in a run. You couldn't really pad your stats in this game - everyone did.
Comic relief was provided by yours truly when we improved the outfield by putting Chuck and me in the middle. I did my best Sting impression - watched a ball that I thought was right at Chuck but tailed more toward me, as it split us for a Suspect third run. Larry won't talk to me any more as it ruined his ERA. But at least Derek kept his scoreless inning streak going in the final inning (after the JFT shutout with Joe in Italy) - perhaps because he got the Suspects to hit away from RC where I was camped. Had 'smores too while I watched everyone else catch balls to end the game. They were delicious.
Milestones:
6/9:
Sting 50 hr (#2)
Chuck 20 gw (#2)
Joe 1200 ab (#3)
Ol' G 350 rbi (#12)
6/16
D 350 ab (#18)
Lefty 150 rbi (#19)
Markley 250 ab (#21)
Markley 100 r (#22)
No comments:
Post a Comment