The great thing about West Sunset is that you can get so many different types of fog. Bright fog, dark fog, sunny fog, wet fog, dry fog. We had them all on Sunday. We also had 20 players, which was a really nice change, and hopefully a sign of more to come. We got to warm up in decent fashion, since there was no league nonsense before us, and we split the teams with Sean going for the visitors and Satch for the homers.
Much like last week, we drew first blood with the help of our lead off man Aiden, he of the youthful legs. We cruised through the first few innings, and Sean was starting to sweat even though it was cold, his pitches were looking good, but they were also getting hit. We tacked on a few more runs, and the innings were crawling by, the 3rd inning felt like the 6th. For some reason, the visitors suddenly came alive, helped by the baseball gods who heard me joke, "Boy am I going to be pissed when I blow this lead."
Well I did, but I can't say I was really mad, games are meant to be scoring affairs, and the end of the 4rd inning found us 5-5.
Luckily, things started falling into place for me again, an I settled back into the groove. Sean settled down and then took himself out, replaced by Diego, who did well, and then Sonny who was tossing the ol' apple. I still felt good, and encouraged by my team, I kept throwing, tallying 8 innings and 3Ks. The best part is that my back isn't killing me today.
We had taken back the lead, 6-5, and then started to pile it on again, when the dust settled in the 9th, it was 9-5. Aiden came in to secure the win, and immediately got into trouble, with the bases loaded and no outs. He worked his magic, after the visitors pushed one run across, and struck out the final batter to win the game.
Final 9-6, Homers.
Highlights:
* A great game, on a perfectly manicured field
* The Gaspar shift worked exactly as it was supposed to
* Adam made an incredible scoop to save a run
* We had some very close plays at first over the day, people were hustling!
* No Don, not even late
* Greg made a long running almost catch, which took a cavernous thunking carom off of his chest, which I heard from the mound
* The sunny glare in the fog for the first few innings made for precarious outfield duty
* I got to use my new Tar Bar from Pelican Wax, tell 'em Satch sent you!
https://www.pelicanbatwax.com/
* Tony had a ground ball hit his glove, fly in the air behind him, and then fall in the vicinity of his right hand, he plucked it out of the air, and made the play at first
* Diego's brought out a friend who obviously knows what he is doing
* I had 3 hits, about 4 RBIs, and I was stranded at successive bases each time I got on, e.g., stranded at first, then second, then third
* Sean gave up 4 hits to shallow right field, his curve ball was nasty, and that was what we could do with it
* Gabe continues to have a strong swing that does not produce the expected results
* Thanks to Greg, John McG, Mike N, Gaspar for catching duty
* One successful infield fly rule, and two that were deemed not routine enough
* I let Sean know that one pitch of each at bat for him would be a big fat one, because I wanted to see him hit one over the short porch in right. He hit two of the hardest foul balls, and then drove a line drive right to Adam at first
* We lost out on about 5 pop outs due to the low hanging batters cage at the field
* Edit from last week: Tony made what he said was his best play in 20 years. I missed it because I have this superstition about watching fielders make plays when I am pitching. I am sorry I didn't see it and did not cite it last week.
