On a day when I did not hold much hope for a good attendance, the MBC really came through. I-80 was closed for a substantial portion of the freeway, yet, the Bay Bridge was open, so I take a look at the traffic, it seemed like I might sneak between the problems. The good news about massive road closures is they do seem to scare off much of the weekend traffic.
We had exactly 18 on a crisp sunny day, the park was full of olde tyme baseballers and looky loos.
Brian Phelps started for the homers, a first in quite a while, and unfortunately, only lasted one inning after succumbing to a hamstring injury, probably a result of his lack of playing lately. Mitch took over after that and took the homers the rest of the way, an impressive 8 inning relief appearance.
I started for the visitors and was pleased to see that the mound at GGP had undergone some basic maintenance and was no longer the grand canyon of landing zones. It was fastball placement and a working curveball that got me through most of the game.
The story of the game had to be the domination of Good Aaron, who is quickly being promoted to Great Aaron. He totaled about 11 bases including a towering HR to left center, three doubles, and a single. In addition, he pitched the last three innings for our team and collected about 6 Ks with the mastery of 4 different pitches. Truly impressive, cap tip.
Scoring-wise, we took the early lead with the aforementioned player leading the way, and the homers responded in kind, but were unable to catch up. The score was 5-1 for most of the game, and then it ballooned to 7-2, which is where it ended.
Defensively the game was pretty clean, including a much-needed double play when I was stuck in a bases loaded hole.
Apologies to Mitch, who I was informed was angered by my laggardness and ineptitude of knowing where I was in the batting order.
Highlights
* Good Aaron doing it all day with the bat and from the mound
* Mitch made several more foul outs racing off the mound, Pitched and Mitched is a real thing
* Patrick and Jacob formed a formidable youthful duo
* I threw a couple of changeups that were crushed....foul, just like it is supposed to happen
* Mitch took out his anger by creating a Ricky run, capping it off with a stylish slide into home
* Ana hit the ball hard all day
* Kenball insists he didn't try to get hit on a 1-2 looping changeup that he backed away from, then lowered his shoulder to. It looked suspect, but Greg smelled honesty and gave him a new count. 3 challenge fastballs later, the inning was over. Sorry Ken, I 65/35 believe you.
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