It's been a while since I got a chance to play. Various family things, weekend sports commitments, rain, it all happens. So it felt great to have a chance to play ball. What wasn't great was trying to find a fucking parking space. I arrived early and drove around for 25 minutes, watching the team every time I drove by. Finally I gave up on anything close and went to the no man's land of Lincoln and 12th. There is always a spot, but the walk sucks.
We were at full bars plus extras for the day, the final may have been 12-12. Sean started for the visitors and Nick W for the homers, but Nick didn't last too long, something in his shoulder went awry and he brought Mitch in immediately. Mitch did great, and so did Sean, working 7 strong. Both pitchers did a good job of controlling the game, and most of the hits were singles. Dave came in to relieve Mitch, he also threw well, working on his knuckler, and then Satch got the last 3 innings. Erasto took the last 2 innings from Sean, and got the 2-inning save, aided by the most deceptive release point in the game.
It seemed like everyone was getting hits, and not too many cheap ones. The new guy Alex, who lives at 7th Ave and saw us from his front window, was killing the ball all day, to the tune of triple, double, single. He scored 2 or 3 of the runs we managed to get.
Sean, McG, Lynch, Erasto, Alex, all were hammering the ball, it seemed like the homers managed to escape mostly unscathed, but there were a lot of runners every inning.
The crowd actually applauded a few times, more interaction than we have seen in a long time at GGP. Probably helped by the aforementioned big bats. The game was close, by the time I came in we were only down one run, 5-4. Well, I coughed up an extra run, and we never could get our come back to materialize, and the final was 6-4, Visitors.
Highlights:
* Beautiful day, full rosters, great game
* Thanks to Greg, McG for catching
* We had a lot of interest in the game, when it rains it pours
* Marcos made several great catches in left, blinded in the sun
* I K'd McG on one of the nastiest knuckleballs I have every thrown
* I owe both my hits to the Tree Trunk, one off the end that only works if your bat is 35" and one on the hands if your bat is thicker at the hands than most barrels.
* Johnny Bartlett and Rick Kvoriak were out, what is it 2004 all over again?
* We tried to play it safe and not test the arm of Gabe from left, and still had the guy thrown out trying to go back to 3rd.
* We had Mike N dead to rights at home, but I was the cutoff and couldn't get the ball out of my glove.
* Heads up play from Dave to get the lead runner at 3rd, in a 6-4-3 situation. It was the right play.
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