Orange Squeezes Purple 17-15

Bottom of the seventh (in a game shortened from the beginning by agreement), two outs, 17-15, Mark Pitzlin on second and Paul Lisi on first as the tying run. Gary Tryhorn up as the winning run. Raul Delgado on deck. A gapper ties it, and the Delgado wins it for Purple with a long ball.

That's the way the script reads, except that's not the way real life worked out. You know Orange is doing something right, or living right, or just got lucky, but Tryhorn flied out to Mark Edelstone in left center and it was game over.

What we did right is what Edelstone did. Catch the routine ones. The outfield - Brian Black, Edelstone, Jay Chafetz, and Vince Franceschi made every catch that was catchable, and hustled in to hold the mostly speedy Purple to one base at a time.

Due to a makeshift infield, the game started off rough. We started out with a solid three run first but  defensive lapses and the usual good hitting by Purple propelled them to a 10-4 lead through three innings. It was getting ugly.

But we settled down on defense. Mark Narciso pretty much held Purple down. Except for a four run outburst in the sixth, they only scored two runs he rest of the way.

And so the table was set for a comeback. We burst open in the fifth. After a leadoff double by Steve Sloat, we made two outs. Then with two outs and our backs against the wall, we got consecutive hits from Mike Saindon, Greg Wilson, Narciso, Franceschi, Chafetz, the Coach, and finally a bomb by Lamont Thompson to tie it up at 10.

We followed that with a one out rally in the sixth, again started by Sloat. This time the big hit was a two run triple over the left fielder's head by Edelstone. Purple answered with four to re-take a lead at 15-13, but we answered right back with another two out rally to plate four in the last inning, again all with two outs. Clutch hits came from Art Oller, Sloat (again), Black and Edelstone.

Sloat stood out with a 4-4 day. Chafetz, Edelstone, Franceschi, Saindon and Wilson all had three knocks. Multiple hit games were enjoyed by Black, Kravin, and Narciso. Everyone had at least one hit. Everyone but Kravin scored a run, and ironically everyone drove in at least one run except Wilson, who has been our RBI leader all season.

There were no webgems on defense, but kudos to Wilson for filling in well at 3B and Saindon, Sloat and Thompson (who had not played together in today's positions all season) as they worked out their early problems and got more solid up the middle as the game went on.

It was a meaningless game, except for the fact that we have given Purple three of the four losses they've had all season. Coppa and company have something to think about with the playoffs coming. I just hope we are both in it when we play them in our last game of the playoffs October 5th. Maybe it will matter, maybe not, all there is left is the play the games!