Orange Crush Cruises past Green 22-15

 I love Orange Juice. Especially when the team is slashing line drives all over the field, and when not doing that, dropping in bloop singles.

For the third week in a row, Team Orange took it out on the opposition, this time avenging our opening game loss to Green, 22-15.

It was a good sign (for us) when Ike Garcia retired the first three batters for a one-two-three first. And then we put up five, two of them on a monster shot by Greg Wilson over the right center fielder's head. In the second, two picks by the first baseman kept Green from tying it up, but in the top of the third our defense got a little too relaxed and allowed Green to get things even at 8-8. It was as close as they got to a lead in the whole game.

Mark Narciso came in to pitch the middle innings. Steve Sloat made a nice catch on a popup behind second that was whistling in the breeze. Garcia, in his time off the mound, went out to play second base for an inning in the fifth. Immediately the ball found him and he made a two nice plays to keep Green off the board.

In the bottom half we got five straight hits to open the inning, and after a sac fly, Gabe Tanaka plated the last run with a bomb to right center field. He was bummed it wasn't a home run (I suspect it was him that secretly snuck up and filled in his square on the scorecard), which it would have been had not the fifth run been on first.

That gave us a 20-9 lead and we kind of went on cruise control until the end. There were some nice catches in the outfield along the way by Sloat, Brian Black and Mark Edelstone.

The whole lineup hit well, but we were led by Wilson, Ron Schwab, and Garcia, who were all 4-4, and Mike Saindon, Tanaka, Bob Carver, Art Oller, and the coach who all had three knocks. Garcia led the way with 4 RBIs.

It was a long road but Team Orange got to .500 with the win.

I coulda had a V8

Or been anywhere else when the Coneheads got hammered by Advance Construction Sunday. One of the Advance Construction team members is on my Creaker team this year. He's always telling me how they have dominated the league the last few years. And looking at yesterday's game, you might be inclined to believe him.

14-2. Not pretty.

So I had to look it up. Covid has stretched out our concept of time. In 2019, indeed they were 10-4 and we were a distant third at 6-7-1. And in 2018 they were 12-1 and we were in third at 8-5-1. But that year we tore through the playoffs, and took down Big Feet and them. Before that of course we ended the season in first place four straight years.

Not exactly Advance dominance, but judging from Sunday afternoon the torch may have been passed.

We are in a period of transition - coaching change, Joe retired. And we added a lot of talent but talent takes a while to gel. That's where we are today.

We started off well enough. Loaded the bases in the first with no outs, D got us on the board with a hit. And then - two popups and a ground out. Advance didn't start any better, only scoring once in the first two innings. We took our first (and last) lead in the second. It was a Chopper special - he doubled and when Gene grounded out to third, he just kept running, drew a throw that should have been the faux pas third out at third, and of course they airmailed it to get him off the hook.

But unfortunately that was it for our scoring - Advance shut us out the rest of the way. 

Defensive highlights included a 6U-3 double play by Randy, the new Joe's first Conehead K, and Gene and Pope making tough catches with the Field 3 sun in their eyes in the 6th.

Hopefully we will start hitting next week.

The Orange Purple People Eater. 25-22

"Well I saw the thing comin' out of the sky

It had the twelve long horns, and twelve big Orange eyes

I commenced to shakin' and I said "Ooh-eee"

It looks like a purple people eater to me

It was a twelve-eyed, twelve-horned, flyin' Orange purple people eater

(Twelve-eyed, Twelve-horned, flyin' Orange purple people eater)

A Twelve-eyed, Twelve-horned, flyin' Orange purple people eater

Sure looks strange to me (one eye?)"

(If you remember this tune, you are probably even more ancient than me)

This is now Frank Coppa's nightmare.

The short handed Orange Monster came out of the sky and ate up the Purple People, 25-22 on field 4 today.

We only had 11 1/2 players, but sometimes having fewer in the lineup just keeps everyone hot and that we were, up and down the lineup.

We dominated the early going. Mark Narciso held the powerful Purple lineup to seven runs in the first five innings. Twice he set down the top of the order - that includes Chip Sharpe, Mark Pitzlin, Gary Tryhorn and Raul Delgado - with zero or one run.

In the top of the first, Mike Saindon made two of his patented great stops at third base to get outs. In the bottom half, Mark Edelstone hit a gapper triple to score a hobbling Kevin Hopkins. Mark ended the day with the 'mini-cycle', a homer, triple, double, and a walk. Gabe Tanaka finished the scoring with a shot down the left field line past the speedy Sharpe and only stopped at second because the fifth run had scored.

In the second we traded four run innings. In the third, Tryhorn smashed a deep fly to dead center that Edelstone tracked down after a long run, and squeezed his glove when the ball rattled around for a while. Then Mark Narciso induced a comebacker from Delgado and made a nice play to get the third out. 

In the fifth we turned over the lineup with six straight hits sandwiched around a bases loaded RBI walk (look it up Frank) to yours truly - the capper being a left center gapper by Hopkins that plated the last two.

There we stood with a commanding 19-7 lead, but we knew the Purple people would make a comeback. And sure enough they did, scoring 12 in the next two frames to tighten the game to 20-19, Suddenly it was anyone's game. 

But in the bottom of the seventh, we answered with five. The game turned on a two out grand slam by Edelstone - again down the left field line. It turned a one run inning into five just like that. Have a game Mark!

In the eighth we traded zeroes - the only time they held us scoreless. It was the right side of the infield's time to shine. The first baseman fell/dove (and then even managed to get up and run to first!) to steal a hit away from one Purple Player, and then Tanaka ranged far to his left to rob another and get the third out.

In the top of the ninth, Delgado did his thing and mashed his second home run, but it was too little too late, and we walked off with the 25-22 win. Purple is undefeated no more! Yum Yum, Eat 'em up!

Brian Black was a perfect 5-5, Art Oller was also perfection at 4-4, Saindon was 4-5, Edelstone led the way with six RBIs.

I voted three MVPs - Edelstone on offense, Tanaka on defense (he also caught a troublesome popup) and Narciso on the mound for making the Purple People look largely ordinary.

Orange 28 Crushes Scarlet 16

There are lots of new players in the American Division this year (and from last) making their debuts this season. So every team is loaded with hitters. No one notices the defense, except when we give the other teams five or six outs in an inning.

In the battle today of the winless Orange and Scarlet, Orange finally put together a few innings of good defense and the very solid pitching of Ike Garcia to soundly defeat Scarlet 28-16. Putting up 28 runs didn't hurt either.

The game was a lot closer than that in the middle innings. The Orange Crush went 1-2-3 in the top of the first but then tallied ten in the next three innings to take a commanding 10-2 lead. The offensive highlight was two run shot over the right center fielder's head by Greg Wilson who touched them all. The defensive highlights were snag/putouts at rover by Mark Narciso and Mike Saindon at third in the fourth and just a crazy good catch in left by Brian Black, on a ball that was seemingly smashed over his head until he reached up and snared it.

In the third we scored five runs on five two out hits by the Coach, Black, Mark Edelstone, Kevin Hopkins, and Vince Francesco. We were on our way.

Ike was dealing and shut out the tough Scarlet lineup for three innings. But Scarlet pecked away with two in the fifth and when we had a defensive relapse in the sixth, they scored six to narrow our lead to 12-10. Our only runs in the middle were on a booming run scoring triple by Saindon, who then also scored on a sac fly by Steve Sloat.

Unlike last week though, this week we were determined to keep our lead. We tallied five in the seventh and four in the eighth punctuated by a triple to left by Narciso. In the ninth we put it away when we batted around with nine of the first ten batters reaching base. We netted seven in the open inning and the 28-16 lead held in the bottom of the ninth.

Francesco was a perfect 5-5, Wilson and Gabe Tanaka had four hits, and Black, Hopkins, Edleston, Saindon, Garcia, Narciso, and Kravin all had three hits to lead the offense.