MCSN: July 23, 2011

Wet & Wild

Week 7 Recap

Mon, Aug 1, 2011

Nitros' Juan Cruz sizes up a pitch After some torrential rain early Saturday morning, Week 7 looked like a lost cause. And if not for some Franchise players, all games would've been cancelled.

"I was ready to cancel them all," recalled commissioner Rob Tong. "The outfield for Diamond #1 looked like a swamp. The main diamond wasn't too bad but I knew the Park District would only give us four bags of Turface and four bags was definitely not going to be enough."

The Franchise's Charles & Marie Heffern and Jeremy Huntington, and Nitros' Sam Baturoni all voted to give the main diamond a try. So with Huntington as main negotiator, the Park District was willing to give ten bags of Turface, just enough to make the field playable. Thanks to the Hefferns, Huntington and Tong for prepping the infield and getting it ready quickly enough to play ball only 15 minutes behind schedule. The Diamond #1 games remained cancelled and the main diamond added a new ground rule where a ground rule double would be called if the umpire decided that the left-fielder had to go around a water puddle in left-field to get a ball.

One team that was glad the games weren't cancelled was The Franchise. They manhandled the short-handed Minor Prophets 22-7 to open the day's games, avenging their Week 2 loss. And despite the return of Prophets' starting pitcher Nick Ploegstra, The Franchise (4-3) set a league-record with 33 hits, the first Moody Softball team to have 30+ hits in a single game. The previous record was 29 hits, set three times (the 2009 Diamond Kings vs. Battalion, the 2009 Bombers vs. Smithereens, and the Friars vs. the Nitros).

"The only person who might be happy with our recent performances is Sam 'the statistician' [Baturoni], since we are making his job rather easy these days," said the Prophets' Dan Coughlin. "Our team continues to play hard. Some of them have the bruises and scrapes to prove it. But we haven't been able to combine a good offensive and defensive performance in the same games like the first couple of weeks."

While the Minor Prophets (2-4-1) couldn't get their offense and defense playing well in the same game, The Franchise certainly did.

"Minor Prophets were a good opponent," said The Franchise assistant manager Kristen Huntington. "They just played a team that was running on all cylinders. Our entire team played well on both sides of the ball."

Franchise slugger Steve Haake showed the storm wasn't the only thing that could bring the thunder as he smashed two balls over the fence, one that the trees knocked down for a ground rule double and one that even the trees couldn't stop for his league-leading fourth out-of-the-park home run. And Ed Freed and Ryan Dollard set the tone at the top of the order, going a combined 10-for-10 with 6 RBI.

"We got great pitching from Mat Smith," noted Huntington. "Charles Heffern, Vince Colada, and Jason Cates were our game MVPs for their stellar play on offense and defense."

Minor Prophets' second baseman Lydia Stalker almost made the play of the day when she nearly caught a sizzling line drive smash. Her glove hand felt sizzling after the effort but everyone in both dugouts was highly impressed with her defensive effort.

Speaking of defensive efforts, the middle game of the day was a defensive-lover's dream. The two highest-scoring teams in the league, the Friars (13 runs per game) and The Usual Suspects (12.5 runs per game), disappointed their fans used to high-octane affairs as The Usual Suspects edged the Friars 6-5.

"An impressive pitching performance by Gary [Lockwood]," summed up Suspects manager Tim Kurtz, who also noted the help of solid defense, including a spectacular sliding catch by right-fielder Bryan Beeh and several great plays by second baseman Katie Beeh.

"We played great Beeh-fense as Katie in the infield and Bryan in the outfield made a number of solid plays," said the Suspects' Bill Van Tuinen.

Indeed, The Usual Suspects (5-1-1) held the Friars' top four hitters (Robert Martinez, Erik Summers, Isaac Rodgers and Jerry Hodge) to a combined 4-for-12 offensive performance, and that proved key to the game.

Friars pitcher Bruce Riegel was every bit Lockwood's match, holding top Suspects hitters Bryan Beeh, Kurtz, Van Tuinen and Tong to just a combined 5-for-14.

"Bruce did a great job of silencing our bats, but the 2nd half of the order was clutch when they needed to be," Van Tuinen said. "It was a great defensive and pitching duel."

The Suspects held a tight 5-4 lead going into the top of the 7th but couldn't close the deal. The Friars tied the game on an RBI single by Jenkins Ssekendi. However, the Suspects won the game in the bottom of the 7th when Kurtz drove home the game-winning run with a single.

The Usual Suspects swept the Friars (4-2-1) in their season series but both game were nail-biters to the end.

In the finale for the day, the Home Invaders got back to .500 after beating the Nitros 9-6. The Home Invaders (3-3-1) scored in every inning except the fourth and seventh innings and had the game in hand the entire way.

"Our hitting did fairly well against the stingy pitching of the double-headed pitching beast of Sam [Baturoni] and Josh [Hall]," said Invaders captain Ovi Tisler. "I HATE hitting against Sam; I must be like 1-for-89 against him. I think I'll just bench myself next time we face him. That'll both help the team out and I can also save face."

The Nitros (0-5-2) scored three runs in the bottom of the 6th inning to make it interesting but didn't have another explosion left in them, thanks in part to a key strategic decision involving the little-used intentional walk rule.

"[That was] the turning point of the game," Tisler said. "They had a runner on base [in that bottom of the 6th] with a big hitter at the plate. We almost walked him to try to get out of the inning. We didn't end up doing that and Lawrence induced a lazy fly ball. We needed [to save] that intentional walk as we used it in the bottom of the 7th on Eric Bartl."

The Home Invaders survived despite being short-handed. Besides missing Andy Tisler, the Invaders also were without David Cho, and Steve Portokalis, as well as John Cui and the Mesenbrinks. With the win, the Home Invaders took the season series against the Nitros since they tied in their first meeting.

"It was tough game, but excited we pulled it out with only fielding 7 of our own players and missing our starting pitcher," Tisler said. "Brittney Ionescu did a fabulous job filling in for our 8th player, and Lawrence was superb pitching for [pitcher] Andy [Tisler]. Our defense was solid also, as it has been for the last 3 weeks. So that was a plus."

“Would that upgrade them to 'Major Prophets' status?”

- The Usual Suspects' Rob Tong on the Minor Prophets if they upset the Friars

After a week off due to a Clarendon Park festival that Coughlin said he never saw when he visited the park, the teams are back in action at twice the fun with double-headers.

On the main diamond at 8am, the Minor Prophets and Friars faceoff, each trying to get back on track after disappointing losses.

"If the Minor Prophets knock off the mighty Friars, would that upgrade them to 'Major Prophets' status?" Tong pondered.

Also at 8am, over at diamond #1, the suddenly hot Franchise tries to end The Usual Suspects' three-game winning streak. The Franchise is the only team to have beaten The Usual Suspects this year.

"We're looking forward to handing the Usual Suspects their 2nd loss of the season and then playing the Nitros who have been playing good defense and keeping their games super-close," Huntington said.

At 9:10am, on the main diamond, the Nitros will try to win their first game of the season against The Franchise.

"Seeing as they are a female-operated entity, I do feel they are only entitled to 80% of the runs the other teams score," Baturoni cracked.

Over at diamond #1 at that time, the Home Invaders try to invade second place by challenging the Friars.

And in the 10:20am games, the league-leading Usual Suspects take on the Home Invaders at the main diamond while the Nitros face the Minor Prophets at diamond #1.

"We have a great opportunity to build some momentum at the end of the season with the double header this weekend," Coughlin said. "We certainly don't want to take on the mentality of 'wait until next week'. There are already enough Cub fans to tote that line."