After this horrible stint i've had of not being able to hit the strike zone, we decided that it might be best to give me a "rehab" start for the 2nd man's team against Kiel on Saturday. standing up on the mound before the first pitch of the game, not going to lie, i was a bit nervous. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to do well and right the ship. And as the first pitch left my hand, it was like i had never left Greencastle, IN. called strike on the outside corner. then another, then finished him off with a knee-buckler. I was back and it felt good. going into the 3rd- my last inning- i hadnt given up a single baserunner, and i had struck out 4. It had to have been that Bifi said something about being perfect that upset the baseball gods, because with one out in the 3rd i walked a guy. but i struck out the next 2 batters and got out of there no hitter still intact. 3 innings, 6Ks, 1 walk.
then i took my spot at Short Stop and let Jan take over from there. in the 4th, Jan threw a high fastball to their #4 hitter and the guy tattooed it over the right field fence for a solo bomb. Not another one of their bats would produce a hit. Daniel came in in the 6th and mowed them down till the end. we won 6-1.
Since we didnt have a 1st man's game this weekend, Thies pitched the nightcap. Oh and Johst's suspension is up, it was only 3 games, so he was able to play in the 2nd game as well. Igl is still out 1 or 2 more games but not near as long as everyone thought it would be. the game started out a bit shakey, they scored a couple in the first, but we answered right back with 4 of our own. we knocked out the starter before he was able to even get an out in the 1st inning. But they retook the lead with 3 runs in the 2nd inning. that lead was short lived however because we scored 3 in our half of the 2nd inning as well. though no one scored in the 4th, the Seahawks we able to scratch across 3 in the 5th to take a 1 run lead. thanks to a bonehead running error by yours truely, our threat to score in the 6th was picked off at 2nd base.
In the bottom half of the 7th, our last chance, we were able to scratch a run across to go into extra innings. Thies was still on the bump and we were using the bend but dont break defense. guys would get on base, but we were able to keep the from scoring. we held them off in the 8th, 9th, and 10th. Thies could only throw 9, he was up around 130 pitches i'd say, and he was getting tired.
So Daniel was to come in in the 10th. the umpires called over the coaches and my first thought was that they were just going to call the game and make it a tie, but Tony ran back over to us and told us that the plate umpire was experiencing sharp pains in his gut (it was a damn big gut too) everytime he bent over behind the catcher. so the umpires had to go back to the locker room and change pads and everything. I figured i'd pretty much seen it all when it came to matters of a baseball field, but since i've come here, I'm beginning to think there is a lot i havent seen. this is the first time ive seen an umpire switch in the middle of a game, and not only did they switch, but the fat umpire, the one with the pains, didnt even come out of the locker room for the end of the game! so now we are down to one umpire, in the 10th inning, and a new zone to have to learn in a very short amount of time. But Daniel fought through it and we got out of the 10th with no damage.
In our half of the 10th, Johst, in the 9 hole, struck out to put 1 away. Thies then came up and blasted a frozen rope up the middle, Daniel struck out then came up the best hitter in the league. I was really wanting to hit a homerun, end this thing in style, but earlier in the game Johst broke the DC Bat. I grabbed my BP bat, a bamboo bat by Brett and walked to the plate - heart racing. "Just give me a fastball on the inner half, Meat." I watched as Tony gave me signs and then turned and pointed to the fence in left. He had the same thought as i did, but apparently Kiel did too. so for the first time in my life i was intentionally walked on 4 pitches. ball 4 sailed in about chest high over the outside part of the plate, and i wanted real bad to reach out there and hit it, but i would have felt real stupid if I had gotten out, so i let it go by and took my base. Jan drew a walk behind me to load the bases with 2 down. Shtule then came to the plate and quickly jumped out to a 2-1 count. it looked like the winning run might be walked in, but the pitcher worked the count back to full. with a full count and 2 down, the runners were off with the pitch and Shtule hit a weak ground ball to the shortstop. since we were all stealing on the pitch, his only play was to 1st. the throw pulled the 1st baseman off the bag and up the line, an easy position to tag the runner for the 3rd out. But reminiscent of A-Rod's play about 5 years ago, Shtule hit the 1st baseman's glove and the ball went flying. SAFE. Thies scored and the ball game was over...finally. the victory pyramid was a sweet one!
A-Ron
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