The monday washout moves us into the Tuesday Doubleheader which would have been games 3 & 4 now are games 1 and 2. The Canterbury Clan ("CC") was facing the Panama Stingers in game 1. The game 1 matchups are usually solid since most teams will be pitching their number 1 starters so great match-ups all around. This game featured last year's camp Cy Young award winner, Lance Anderson, vs last year's MVP award winner, me, were the pitching match-ups in our game. The game started at 10am and the warm day was setting in. The sun was peaking out and temps rising into the 70's by the first pitch. We were batting first and Lance started off with a strikeout of the lead off hitter. I hit 2nd and worked a 2-2 count and laced a base hit into right center field. I moved up to 2nd base on a wild pitch. Matt came up and ended up taking a walk -- so with one out we have 1st and 2nd. Lance worked the next hitter enough to get a strikeout for the 2nd out. Matt and I moved up a base on another wild pitch (or passed ball) so we had 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. Randy knocked a base hit to left center and plated both Matt and myself for the games first two runs. The inning ended on a ground ball but the Clan staked themselves out to a quick 2-0 lead. I went to the rubber with the idea that I wanted to mix my pitches but more importantly -- throw strikes. I always strive myself to be a good control pitcher so that is always my goal. I struck out the first two batters and induced a pop out to short to end the first the inning. I felt very fluid out there, not trying to overthrow and hit the corners....so far so good. Let's fast forward to the bottom of the fifth inning and at this time I had retired all 12 batters and currently pitching a "perfect game"-- I continued the stellar pitching with a 1-2-3 inning and thus has retired all 15 batters. We scratched another run to make it 3-0 and all I had to do is get 6 more outs to secure the victory. I went to the mound in the bottom of the 6th inning facing the "meat"of the order -- I quickly got the first out (if you are counting 16 guys now). With Matt G coming up to the plate I didn't want to give one away -- on the 3rd pitch I left it up and out -- thinking he was just going to take ball 3 I let up on the play -- Matt took the pitch right back up the middle - a line drive shot that escaped my glove (and quite frankly my face) and into center-field for the first hit of the game. Now a part of me thinks I could have caught that, but another part of me was happy it didn't hit my face. I ended up getting the next two guys out and we head into the 7th inning still up 3-0. I get to the mound to finish out the game and after getting the first two guys I give up my 2nd base-runner after he reached on an error by the SS. I induce a first pitch ground ball to the SS who flipped it to 2nd base to end the game. A nice 1 one hit shutout in the books and the Canterbury Clan is in the left hand column with a "W". I really think the Stingers are one of the better teams at camp so it was a good victory. I ended up getting another hit and popping out in my last AB, so I had a real quality game overall -- 2 for 3, run, 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K's -- a great way to start camp.
Game 2 -- in game 2 we faced the "DreamWeavers" -- as noted in a previous blog I handicapped them as a "bottom four" team. We felt good going into this match-up as I think our team has some really good hitters. We didn't score a lot of runs in the first game but we did hit Lance enough to manufacture runs. The pitchers we were to face in game 2 would be "more favorable" for us so we were looking to plate a lot more runs than 3. We were the home team (wearing out white Twins uniforms) and the game started off rough as we gave up 2 runs in the top of the first. We got some hits in the bottom of the first but only able to get 1 run. We just couldn't get our bats going and ended up losing to the DreamWeavers 5-3. They played good defense and had enough pitching to secure a victory -- our bats were cold and couldn't put together multiple hits. I ended up going 1 for 2 in the game, playing some outfield and shortstop.
End of Day one Hitting Stats: 3 for 5, run
End of Day one Standings:
Stay Thirsty 2-0
Dream Weavers 2-0
Canterbury Clan 1-1
Panama Stingers 1-1
Hrbekskis 1-1
Warriors 1-1
Battery Mates 0-2
Bombers 0-2
Kangaroo Court will be in session tonight -- I will be looking at digging in my wallet -- evidently tweeting in the dugout is frowned upon....
PB
~~ "Nobody has ever said "Work Ball", they say "Play Ball" that means having fun" -- Willie Stargell ~~
No comments:
Post a Comment