Another great day to be playing baseball - despite the mostly cloudy skies -- a lot teams are in the mix for the coveted top 4 spots at camp -- we played two of the teams that are in the "lower"division and even if they they win two they are probably not going to make it into the top 4 -- if we win one game we most likely find out way into the 4 seed and in the top division.
The morning game we were matched up against the Cuban Southern Stingers -- Eric Nelson was on the mound vs our wiley veteran John Spagnolo ("Spags") on the bump for us. Spags injured a hammy earlier in the week but the trainers got him put together enough to come out and start this game for us.
Eric and Spags were dealing early and nobody was scoring - but after a couple walks by Spags the Stingers struck for 3 runs to stake themselves out to an early lead. I figured we needed to get to Nelson early but we were not able to put anything together until the 5th inning when we scratched a run home, they countered with another run and it was 4-1 going into the bottom of the sixth inning - we scored 1 (yours truly) and had the bases chucked with 1 out -- Besser, our standout rookie, lined a shot to left centerfield and our friend Johnny Moore tracked it down for the out, but a baserunning error found us out of the inning as Moore through out the runner who thought the ball was going to find some green. A foiled rally -- Spags got the team into the bottom of the 7th with a 4-2 score - we got our leadoff guy on and he came around to score with 1 out and a guy on first. Nelson focused in and seemingly hit a batter (the ball hit his hand and then the bat) well for some reason the umpire did not see it that way and it turned into a foul ball instead and then an out. A wild pitch advanced the runner to 2nd and Father Stan was up battling to get the tying base hit -- Nelson was not going to give in and on a 2-2 pitch Nelson painted the outside corner with a knee high fastball that the umpire rung up Fr. Stan. Ballgame -- nicely done, we just couldn't get our bats going so we drop the first game.
Our 2nd game we played the 2-4 Saggy B's (short for Balls) -- they were desperate for pitching but Ron S went out to start for them. I went to high school with his son (Mike) so it has been a fun week watching Ron (who I think is 71) have a fun time at camp. Ron got knocked around a bit as we touched him for 7 runs over 2 innings -- but I think he said he had a great time - he did a nice job and our bats were pretty warm and I got 2 of those hits off of Ron. The game ended up being more of a tune up for tomorrow and we ended up finishing off the 11-5 victory. We finish 4-3 for the week and most likely the 4 seed. I reviewed a couple of scenario's and in fact we had a situation where we could have fallen to the 5 seed if the BSer's beat the Warriors causing a major cluster "eff" of 4-3 teams and since we have been giving up too many runs -- well it might have cost us a top 4 finish. I was not real worried about it because we finish were we finish -- but who knows. Runs Against is the first tiebreaker for the teams - which is a fair way to do it.
A good day out there and after the other games finished up here are my "UNOFFICIAL" standings and matchups for the playoffs
#1 Seed - Yo Julio's 5-2
#2 Seed - BSer's 4-3
#3 Seed - Warriors 4-3
#4 Seed - Sleepers 4-3
#5 Seed - PED's 4-3
#6 Seed - 38's 3-4
#7 Seed - Stinger's 2-5
#8 Seed - Saggy B's 2-5
So the 1 plays the 4 and the 2 vs 3 play for the upper division and the 5 seed plays the 8 and the 6 vs 7 for the lower division -- whoever wins on friday -- plays saturday for the upper/lower championships -- so here is to a lower division championship run!!
~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~
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