Double Duty
Week 7 Recap
By Rob Tong
Tue, Aug 4, 2015
8am game, Clarendon
If you arrived at the diamond and thought the field looked a little off, no, you weren't lacking sleep. The field was definitely off, with home plate set up too far forward, resulting in a third-base foul line that was about 10 feet to the right of the left-field foul line. Thankfully, the quality of the game itself far exceeded the quality of the field setup.The game was a back-and-forth defensive struggle, featuring six lead changes and two ties. The Mustards Seeds posted just one run in the first inning but Holy Walkamolies was only one run better in their half of the inning. The Seeds tied the game in the second inning and took a 3-2 lead in the third but the Holy team tied it in their half of the inning. The Seeds reclaimed the lead with a run in the fourth but the Walkamolies scored three in their half to take the lead right back at 6-4. The Walkamolies plated two more to extend their lead to 8-4 but the Seeds exploded for five runs in the top of the sixth to re-take the lead at 9-8 and scored three more in the seventh for insurance. The Walkamolies had nothing left, giving the Seeds a 12-8 win.
Eric Baker had two booming home runs for the Seeds. "The Seeds pitcher was a bit wild but he continues to strike out more than he walks," said that pitcher, Dave Neely...an odd claim given that the Walkamolies neither got walks nor struck out. But let's run with it anyway.
8am game, alternate field
Usually, finding a sub isn't terribly difficult...if you're at Clarendon. But on the other side of Lake Shore Drive, it's not like players just stroll around.That's the predicament the shorthanded Fellowship Of The Ring had when they needed to find a sub in their game against Caravan. Since the ump had not yet arrived, Ring manager Rob Tong went back to Clarendon to find a sub. Finding none but finding some Caravan members who showed up at the wrong field, Tong drove the Caravan players to the other field. Lo and behold, both Covenant's Bryan Beeh and Team America's Rachel Campbell were at the field. Beeh agreed to ump so that Campbell, the originally scheduled ump, could sub for the Fellowship. And the game was on.
Unfortunately for the Fellowship, Tong's pitching was not on. Subbing for regular team pitcher Scott Veigel, Tong was replaced at pitcher after the first two Caravan batters walked, the shortest stint as pitcher in league history.
"I don't know if I got a case of the yips or what," Tong said.
Caravan then put the Fellowship on notice that they were not impressed with their undefeated record, putting the Rings in an 8-2 hole after the first two innings. But the Rings' Angel Ortiz, in relief of the relief pitcher (re-relief?), started to find his pitching groove, giving up only four more runs over the next four innings. Meanwhile, the Fellowship offense woke up and scored 21 runs over that same span to cruise to a 23-12 win.
"Our defense was sub-standard today but Ortiz came up huge as our first-inning closer," Tong deadpanned. "Our offense really carried us in a game our defense didn't show up."
Even without star slugger Robert Martinez, every member of the Fellowship had both at least one hit and at least one RBI, another first for the league. Alyssa Martinez shone with two hits, two walks and two RBI, and Campbell was a star with four hits and two RBI to go with a spectacular catch of a Caravan line drive.
Caravan (2-5) got a 3-for-3, four-RBI performance from Alex Ruffolo as well as four RBIs (including a monstrous home run) from David Needham and a 3-for-3 day by Steve Borgstrom. Chlece Neal also went 2-for-3 with a nice catch at second base on a Fellowship pop up. But it still wasn't enough to overcome the Rings (7-0).
9am game, Clarendon
The Fellowship took their journey to the familiar Middle-Earth locale at Clarendon to face the young Crossroads/Veritas Flames. The Flames got approval to have Jordan play for their team this day even though he is not a registered league player. Meanwhile, playing left field in the off-kilter field at Clarendon, Tong noted, "The nice thing about today's field setup is that it helps older guys in the league like me because there is less field I have to cover."The Flames impressively scored five in the top of the second inning, the first time the Flames have scored the max five runs in an inning this season...and against the Rings' defense, no less.
In fact, after the Flames scored those five runs to tie the game at five and the Fellowship scored another five runs to re-take the lead 10-5, the Flames responded with four more runs to impressively keep the game close, 10-9.
Alas, Ortiz again found his groove on the mound while the Rings kept scoring, posting nine unanswered runs to win 19-9. But there was much positive to take away from the Flames' side.
Rachel Anderson and Daniel Klingenberg both went a perfect 2-for-2, and three players (Elbert Whitfield, Karun Nuthalapati and Pablo Silva) were a solid 2-for-3 to pace the Flames offense. Jordan chipped in with a team-high three RBI, as the Flames plated their highest run total of the season against the league's second-stingiest defense. In fact, the Flames scored more against the Rings in this game than the Flames had scored in their six previous games combined.
Just one game from setting a league record with every player having both at least one hit and one RBI, the Fellowship did it again in this game. Sub Josue Contreras chipped in two RBI. A Flames player was overheard saying of a sub playing for the Fellowship, "I knew one day the Fellowship would be broken."
9am game, alternate field
The Mustard Seeds took their impressive play over to the other field to face Covenant. The LaSalle team hung tough against mighty Covenant and fell just a little short, losing 13-11 to the Moody team.Following the same script against the Walkamolies earlier, the Seeds made this a closely contested game throughout against Covenant. The Seeds scored five runs in the bottom of the first, making a statement after Covenant scored three runs to open the game. "Both Ovi and [I] hit a home run in their first at-bat," Covenant manager Andrew Tisler said. "The defense took some time to adjust to the new field with no fence but [we] tightened things up the remainder of the game, led by Nick Ploegstra on the mound."
Covenant reclaimed the lead in the second with five runs in the next two innings to lead 8-5, but the Seeds tied it in the bottom of the third inning.
"Covenant hit the ball hard and far," Neely said. "Once our outfielders figured out where to play, we held them close."
"The team rallied around small-ball from there," Andrew Tisler said.
Covenant took the lead again with four runs over the next four innings to go on top 12-8 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning. The Seeds scored three runs to pull within 12-11. Covenant added an insurance run in the top of the seventh and unfortunately for the Seeds, Team Gold went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the seventh to seal the 13-11 loss.
Perhaps the MCSN play of the day was a defensive gem by Terrell Warfield, tagging out a runner at home.
10am game, Clarendon
Team America from Harvest took on a rested Caravan team who made the trek back from the other field.The Americans scored one to open the game but Caravan hit the max five runs to lead 5-1 after one inning. Defense and pitching ruled the next two innings until Caravan outscored the heroic team 8-1 the rest of the way to pull away to a 13-2 win. It didn't help that Team America's George Birkenstock was nursing an upper body injury that robs him of his trademark power.
David Needham cranked an inside-the-park home run as part of his team-high four RBI to lead the Caravan attack. Caravan's top nine hitters were a combined 17-for-24 against Team America, including a deep shot to left-center by Gene Yau.
“I knew one day the Fellowship would be broken.”- A Flames player joking about a sub needing to play for the Fellowship
Team America's Janson Roberts did one better, hitting a blast over the fence. But the trees kept it in the park to limit Roberts to a ground-rule double. It was that kind of a day for Team Blue (0-6).
Caravan improved to 5-2 with the win.
10am game, alternate field
The Flames made the trek across the highway to take on a rested Walkamolies team intent on making up for their earlier loss. The Flames were hoping to continue the improvement they showed in their fight against the mighty Fellowship.The Flames continued to stay hot, with all but one of their 12 batters notching a hit and having only seven fewer hits than the Holy team. Unfortunately, the Flames couldn't string the hits together to put more runs on the board. The Flames only trailed 10-5 at the end of two innings but the Walkamolies, who scored in every inning, outscored the Crossroads/Veritas combo team 11-3 over the final three innings to claim the win. Though the Flames put up their second-highest run total this season, they fell short 21-8.
Holy Walkamolie, Batman! Every blue-shirted batter had at least one hit, with Steve Portokalis, John Mosinski and Niko Portokalis each going 4-for-4, and Lee Portokalis tying Fellowship's Felipe Chavez with a week-high six RBI.
For the Flames, they batted a respectable .533 as a team, including Pablo Silva and Daniel Klingenberg still swinging their flamin' hot bats and Marquita Stokes and Andrea Garcia chipping in with an RBI apiece. Jordan again contributed three RBI, including a home run.
The Flames fell to 0-8 but are showing definite signs of improvement all around. The Walkamolies evened their record at 3-3-1.
11am game, Clarendon
The two Harvest teams squared off against each other, drawing the biggest crowd of the season as other Harvesters came to watch the in-fighting. Think Iron Man (red shirts) vs. Captain America (blue shirts)."Was it the eye black, Nike wristbands or Irene and Tim’s mascot dog Norman that intimidated Team America?" the Reapers' Merissa Seefried rhetorically asked. "With the biggest crowd seen yet this year Harvest Reapers and Team America were dually supported as “The Showdown” began."
"The Showdown" lived up to the billing as the game was locked in a 2-2 tie after the first inning. After the non-Americans scored three in the bottom of the second inning to take a 5-2 lead, the Americans chipped away to trail only 5-4 going into the bottom of the fourth inning. But the Reapers scored four with one mighty swing to give Team Red a 9-4 lead that held up as a 10-6 win.
"The score was close up until the fourth inning where Elvin Velez’s game-changer grand slam put us over the top in runs," Seefried said. "Jenny Archulta contributed with a solid three RBIs and Matt Chandler following with two. There was great team effort all around...one of the most memorable games by far."
The Reapers are now 4-2 while Team America (0-7) is still in search of its first win of the season.
11am game, alternate field
Life did not imitate art in this game. While the video game Frogger has a frog avoid trouble trying to navigate across a highway, Covenant was the one to take a hike across the highway to meet FROG...and apparently had a little trouble."After some confusion on which field to play on, and starting the game one-hour late, Covenant came out ice cold, scoring just one run in three innings and quickly falling behind 5-1," Andrew Tisler said.
Of course, when you have the bats Covenant has, a 5-1 deficit is meaningless. At the same time, FROG's defense is nothing to sneeze at. This was a fierce battle worthy of two teams with only one loss.
"[We] rallied in the fourth with small-ball, aggressive base running, and heart, scoring four in the bottom of the fourth to tie," said Tisler.
FROG reclaimed the lead in the fifth, but Ethan Sinnema added a two-run home run in the fifth to keep Covenant in the game. Team Brown still faced a three-run deficit going into the bottom of the last inning. Covenant chipped away, cutting the deficit to one but were now down to their last out.
"With two outs, two men on, in a do-or-die at-bat, Andrea Tisler stepped up to the plated and crushed a walk-off double in the gap," Andrew Tisler said.
With the lady Tisler snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, FROG's heartbreaking loss dropped them to 4-2 while Covenant improved to 6-1.
12pm game, Clarendon
The Reapers, still euphoric after their win over their Harvest brethren, were ready to take on the In Focus Ospreys.For reasons that escape team leaders, the Reapers started out cold, shut out in the first inning. The Ospreys were not exactly sympathetic, pounding out five runs in their half of the first inning. The Reapers started to wake up with two runs in the second, but the Ospreys stayed In Focused and kept pounding away, scoring another five runs to take a stiff 10-2 leader after two innings.
"[We] started off a bit rough in the first two innings…contemplating if it was the lack of 4 outfielders, the intense heat or double-header game," Seefried said.
Even so, the Reapers stepped it up, scoring five runs over the next two innings to pull to within 10-7.
"If it’s one thing we know for sure…," said Seefried. "Reapers don’t give up easily."
Alas, the Ospreys also don't give up easily, responding with five runs of its own over the next two innings to expand their lead to 15-7 heading into the final sixth inning. Red Harvest only mustered three runs to fall 15-10. But it wasn't for lack of effort.
"Matt Chandler showed up with his bat and gained five RBIs," said Seefried. "Was it his motivation to win against his old teammate Rob [McMahon] or did luck come from wearing his stylish Nike headband?"
The Reapers dropped to 4-3 while the Ospreys moved to 2-4-1.
12pm game, alternate field
With the 10am game starting at 11:05am and the 11am game starting at 12:15pm, the 12pm game was on pace to start at 1:30pm. With that in mind, plus the fact that the Donuts were short-handed with no one around to sub, FROG and the Dugout Donuts agreed to reschedule this game to the following week. Smart move.Looking ahead
Whew. This writer, for one, will be looking forward to next week's normal slate of games so he doesn't have to write summaries for ten games in one week!At 8am, the In Focus Ospreys will try to plant the Mustard Seeds.
Covenant and the Fellowship Of The Ring will try to outslug each other in the 9am game. Covenant boasts the league's top-rated defense and second-best offense while the Fellowship claims the league's top-rated offense and second-best defense. The Fellowship can clinch the #1 seed in the playoffs with a win.
Holy Walkamolies will try to cut off FROG's legs in the 10am game.
One team will get its first win of the season when Team America takes on the improving Flames at 11am. If the Flames lose, they will clinch the #11 seed for the playoffs.
Also at 11am, since the Donuts already know they won't have enough players to avoid forfeit, FROG and the Donuts will play an exhibition game across the highway for any players interested in subbing. Too bad because this would have been a very tasty game had the Donuts not had holes (get it? Donut holes? Ha, I slay me!) in their attendance.
Back at Clarendon, the 12pm game will feature another exhibition game as the Donuts need subs to play the Reapers.
The league is in the home stretch of the schedule. It will be interesting to see how the games affect team seedings for the playoffs!
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