Elite Delete!

A bases loaded groundout, a slow grounder up the middle bobbled at least twice. These accounted for two of our three runs in the top of the seventh to take what in this game was a commanding 9-6 lead.

Add to that a hard grounder that Dr. Larry managed to knock down and somehow shovel to James covering second in the bottom half, and the elite Elite stranded the tying run on first, and suddenly find themselves just a half game up on the upstart Coneheads.

Granted we will need help to topple them and let's face it, it's all about the playoffs in this league anyway. Still they have now lost to each of the three teams, and the race for Cotton is wide open.

I'm not sure if it was the heat or the pitching but neither team hit very sharply. Joe certainly had the Elite hitters reaching.

Derek made the play of the game in the second when he went airborne to snare a line drive with a ticket to right field. Joe later turned a shot off his toe neatly into a 1-11-3 double play.

Pope's towering opposite field blast over the left fielder's head was the hit of the game, a two run triple in the third. Lefty made an attempt to one up that in the fourth with a gapper to center, only to come up lame with another calf pull coming into second. Whoever heard of barking calves?

It's always tough to win a tough low-scoring close game as the visitor. In that way tonight's was a big game in more ways than just closing in on first place - we let the Elite know they are not all that.

Milestones:

7/11:

Lefty            50 2b (#1)

Pope             10 hr (#2)

Pope             50 g (#21)

7/18:

Pope             100 h (#18)

Orange turns Green with envy, loses 22-21

In a very competitive game, Orange suffered defensive lapses at critical times, and allowed the Mean Green to walk off with a 22-21 win.

The lead changed hands early several times. Green 2-0, Orange 4-2, Green 5-4, Orange 9-5, Green 10-9. Orange 12-10. Then we played even for a couple of innings, until we put up five in the eighth. 21-17 is not a comfortable lead on these fields, but it felt like we had the momentum going into the ninth.

Then Green hung a zero on us in the open ninth. We still felt good, with the bottom of their lineup coming up. But as my own personal adage goes, if the bottom of the lineup hits, you win. They quickly loaded the bases and plated one and with one out, an infield pop fly was dropped and then it was a day at the circus. ALL THREE RUNNERS scored to tie the game. Cue circus music.

With the top of their lineup up now, the end seemed pre-ordained and they walked off with two more hits.

We have all kinds of excuses and had all kinds of chances, but give Green credit for hanging in there, and playing defense until the last out was made.

Jay Chafetz (LF) and Greg Wilson (RC) gave us our great outfield grabs of the day. Wilson also went high up to snare a line shot at rover. And on an earlier infield bases loaded infield popup that was not high enough to qualify as an infield fly, the ball hit the second base bag, and Ron Schwab pounced on it and got a force out at third, with Mike Saindon staying on the base. Heads up play all around.

Saindon led the way with a perfect 5-5 day. Schwab, Steve Sloat, Art Oller, and Kravin added four each. Oller's seemed to all be two out clutch hits, and he led the team with four RBIs. Wilson, Mark Narciso and Chafetz chipped in three each, and Wilson's included our only home run.

The league is tightening with Scarlet's win over Royal, and seems very balanced. Every play counts as we saw on Heather Field Five today.