Three for the price of one, Orange 26 - Royal 11

 After the Orange team had a victory beer, I moseyed over to the Royal pod to gloat.

John Preston said, "Here comes Kravin to gloat."

I was trying not to gloat.

Doug and Gary and Gerry and others said, "You can gloat now."

And I was trying not to gloat!

Well so here goes: No one wants to play Orange right now, we are on a roll, four wins in a row, including taking down two undefeated teams.

Way to jinx us for next week Heff.

This game was actually way closer than the score indicates. It was one of those three games in one games. In the first three innings we scored five twice, and zero in the third, while the talented Royals tallied 4, 1. and 5. So after three innings it was knotted up at 10 and it looked like a 31-30 game.

Thirteen of our first 15 batters got hits. The Marks, Narciso and Edelstone both ended an inning driving in the last runs with a double. I'm sure the scorecard on the other side looked similar.

And then an amazing thing happened - all the bats went silent on both teams. We scratched over two runs in the fifth, and Royal one in the sixth but for innings 4-7 the score was 2-1.

So it was that we took our very slim one run lead into the top of the eighth. Royal got two quick outs. Then Vince Francesci singled, and Mike Saindon doubled and up strode the secret weapon, Greg Wilson, the big lefty. He planted a long line drive way over the right fielder's head for a three run homer. And when we got back to back doubles by Ron Schwab and Narciso and a single from Ike Garcia, it seemed that the game was over.

Royal threatened in the last two innings but didn't score. We batted around in the open ninth and piled on another nine runs for the final score of 26-11 so it looked like a blowout, but really wasn't. We did dominate the last two innings 14-0.

Along the way we had plenty of good defense, which has really been the hallmark of our turnaround. Jay Chafetz made a great catch robbing Gary Namanny with two outs and the bases loaded in the second. Steve Sloat and Gabe Tanaka played two really high hop grounders into outs in the fourth and sixth. Saindon went to his knees at third base to stop a ball ticketed to left field to get a force out at second in the eighth. Then Francesci gunned down a runner at second on a clean single to right and Bob Carver snared a fading hard hit line shot up the middle for the third out.

The play of the day, though came in the fifth. On a little looper in no man's land in the infield, Schwab scooped it up before it touched the ground, and then shot the ball to second to turn a double play.

Narciso was 5-5 with six RBIs, Francesci was 4-4 plus a walk, and Chafetz, Edelstone, Saindon, Wilson (five RBIs), Schwab, Sloat and Carver all had three hits. Tanaka took two walks for the team to go with his hit, something he probably rarely does. Narciso also pitched the middle three innings, allowing just one run, and Garcia allowed zero the last three innings.

It was a great way to spend a Tuesday morning!