My girlfriend says I am spoiled. My teams are 24-8-3 this year. The Coneheads, now in Walnut Creek and Orinda flavors, are 8-2-2. Near the top in both leagues. The best 'finishing' team in both leagues the last five years.
And yet...tied the Corona Crushers in WC. Tied St. Mo's in Orinda. Both of these opponents have been our respective nemeses in the two leagues.
We once went 13-0-1 in Walnut Creek, the only blemish being a tie with Corona. We are clearly better than these guys but we always play down to them, it seems. We spotted them a 9-2 lead this time, and then came roaring back with five in the fourth and seven in the sixth only to lose defensive focus in the bottom half and give up three to tie. Sometimes a tie feels like a loss and we had the third out in our hands.
On the other hand, for a while over the years St. Mo's had our number - they beat us three times in a row in the regular season (2012-14) and even once in the playoffs. We kind of took care of that in 2013 in the playoffs and after that year's first round loss, won seven in a row from the loser's bracket, the key win being getting our retribution against them late Saturday to get to Sunday to win it all.
Last Thursday we had the opposite experience as the Corona game, a tie felt like a win. We had a lead that we coughed up, yet it was only 13-9 at the widest and it was anyone's game. When they took a only a one run lead though in the bottom of the sixth we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. But though we had the first two batters on in the top of the seventh, we could only manage one run to tie.
In the bottom of the seventh, St. Mo's had second and third with no outs. Joe made a great call to load the bases by intentionally walking the next batter. It could be debated - they had the big hitters up only needing a fly ball to win it. The manager couldn't decide and Joe made the call himself. The next batter hit a grounder to Randy at SS and he threw out the potential winning run at home, and the last batter tried too hard and hit a double play grounder that we handled. We felt like we escaped a disaster.
In the middle of the game we hit some bombs, with Sting, Pope and Bruce going yard in one inning. Bruce hit for the cycle, a first for our teams this year. Randy (3 doubles), Ol' G, and Heffe had three hits each.
After Chuck got hit on the wrist and his hand blew up, Haze was thrown into the infield at third base. He had a dream defensive inning, snagging a tall line drive and two hot one hoppers that he turned into outs. There was an assist from yours truly on the first one. He threw high and into the runner and I had to drag my foot across the bag. Or so the ump thought. I won't say too much, but let's just say that I quickly smoothed out my foot print along the bag. At any rate Haze had one of the best defensive innings this year in the 5th.
Since the last post for the two teams, both teams also lost a game. In Walnut Creek we were just flat against Who's On First, losing 10-8. We beat them 99 out of 100.
In Orinda, we played the defending champ/everyone's most hated team, the Waitlisters, to a tie at 8-8. But we had time left and got greedy, and played an extra inning when we had the bottom of our order coming up and they had the top of theirs. Not that we couldn't win in that scenario but we couldn't score and they pushed one across. They also had the bases loaded with their big hitters up, and Joe had owned them to that point. But the five hole hitter just crushed one to win it with the outfield drawn in with just one out.
In between these fiascos, we did manage to get wins over the Masterbatters in WC and the Reds in Orinda. Against the Masterbatters, Gene and Sting had three hits each including a triple, but the play of the game came from Sting in left center. In his first game in the field after getting the green light for throwing again, he caught a fly ball in medium deep left center, and noticed the old guy on first was straying too close to second. He fired a strike to me at first and all I had to do was wait for the runner to come back into my glove for the double play. I guess we all should rest our arms for a year and a half!
In both leagues our destiny is in our own hands, especially Walnut Creek, where we are closing in on the end of the season, and have double headers the next two Sundays. Included is the team we are tied for first with - the Polar Bears have played an extra game but we have a tie so we are both six games over .500. the winner of our game with them pretty much sews it up, but there are still four other games we need to win.
Milestones Walnut Creek:
6/5
D 200 ab (#14)
Johnny 100 ab (#19)
6/12
Lefty 30 bb (#4)
Knight 250 h (#5)
6/26
Lefty 450 ab (#3)
Sting 100 g (#11)
Randy 200 ab (#15)
Milestones Orinda:
6/13
Heffe 1550 ab (#2)
Stink Eye 750 h (#4)
Haze 250 ab (#23)
6/20
Ol' G 500 h (#12)
6/27
Chopper 300 h (#17)
And yet...tied the Corona Crushers in WC. Tied St. Mo's in Orinda. Both of these opponents have been our respective nemeses in the two leagues.
We once went 13-0-1 in Walnut Creek, the only blemish being a tie with Corona. We are clearly better than these guys but we always play down to them, it seems. We spotted them a 9-2 lead this time, and then came roaring back with five in the fourth and seven in the sixth only to lose defensive focus in the bottom half and give up three to tie. Sometimes a tie feels like a loss and we had the third out in our hands.
On the other hand, for a while over the years St. Mo's had our number - they beat us three times in a row in the regular season (2012-14) and even once in the playoffs. We kind of took care of that in 2013 in the playoffs and after that year's first round loss, won seven in a row from the loser's bracket, the key win being getting our retribution against them late Saturday to get to Sunday to win it all.
Last Thursday we had the opposite experience as the Corona game, a tie felt like a win. We had a lead that we coughed up, yet it was only 13-9 at the widest and it was anyone's game. When they took a only a one run lead though in the bottom of the sixth we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. But though we had the first two batters on in the top of the seventh, we could only manage one run to tie.
In the bottom of the seventh, St. Mo's had second and third with no outs. Joe made a great call to load the bases by intentionally walking the next batter. It could be debated - they had the big hitters up only needing a fly ball to win it. The manager couldn't decide and Joe made the call himself. The next batter hit a grounder to Randy at SS and he threw out the potential winning run at home, and the last batter tried too hard and hit a double play grounder that we handled. We felt like we escaped a disaster.
In the middle of the game we hit some bombs, with Sting, Pope and Bruce going yard in one inning. Bruce hit for the cycle, a first for our teams this year. Randy (3 doubles), Ol' G, and Heffe had three hits each.
After Chuck got hit on the wrist and his hand blew up, Haze was thrown into the infield at third base. He had a dream defensive inning, snagging a tall line drive and two hot one hoppers that he turned into outs. There was an assist from yours truly on the first one. He threw high and into the runner and I had to drag my foot across the bag. Or so the ump thought. I won't say too much, but let's just say that I quickly smoothed out my foot print along the bag. At any rate Haze had one of the best defensive innings this year in the 5th.
Since the last post for the two teams, both teams also lost a game. In Walnut Creek we were just flat against Who's On First, losing 10-8. We beat them 99 out of 100.
In Orinda, we played the defending champ/everyone's most hated team, the Waitlisters, to a tie at 8-8. But we had time left and got greedy, and played an extra inning when we had the bottom of our order coming up and they had the top of theirs. Not that we couldn't win in that scenario but we couldn't score and they pushed one across. They also had the bases loaded with their big hitters up, and Joe had owned them to that point. But the five hole hitter just crushed one to win it with the outfield drawn in with just one out.
In between these fiascos, we did manage to get wins over the Masterbatters in WC and the Reds in Orinda. Against the Masterbatters, Gene and Sting had three hits each including a triple, but the play of the game came from Sting in left center. In his first game in the field after getting the green light for throwing again, he caught a fly ball in medium deep left center, and noticed the old guy on first was straying too close to second. He fired a strike to me at first and all I had to do was wait for the runner to come back into my glove for the double play. I guess we all should rest our arms for a year and a half!
In both leagues our destiny is in our own hands, especially Walnut Creek, where we are closing in on the end of the season, and have double headers the next two Sundays. Included is the team we are tied for first with - the Polar Bears have played an extra game but we have a tie so we are both six games over .500. the winner of our game with them pretty much sews it up, but there are still four other games we need to win.
Milestones Walnut Creek:
6/5
D 200 ab (#14)
Johnny 100 ab (#19)
6/12
Lefty 30 bb (#4)
Knight 250 h (#5)
6/26
Lefty 450 ab (#3)
Sting 100 g (#11)
Randy 200 ab (#15)
6/13
Heffe 1550 ab (#2)
Stink Eye 750 h (#4)
Haze 250 ab (#23)
6/20
Ol' G 500 h (#12)
6/27
Chopper 300 h (#17)
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