Anthony went right after Rockford, pumping in two fastballs for strikes to begin the at-bat before missing away with another heater. Rockford fouled off the next pitch, a curveball, before grounding out to second on another fastball, resulting in an inning-ending double play.
(Anthony: XP +2)
In the top of the fourth, Anthony had another chance to contribute, this time with the bat, as he came up with one out and a runner on third base. He hit a slow roller toward second, and with the only play at first base, Anthony had himself an RBI groundout.
In the bottom half, Anthony again worked himself into a jam, and was now removed, having tossed 86 pitches on the day, with two outs and runners on first and second for the Jaguars.
In from the bullpen came Wei Ling, the lefty, who had fired two shutout innings in the Raiders’ previous game; a double-switch was put on, with reserve David Dobbs coming in to play third base. Walker Grove’s only other available pitcher was Lake Lagunov, who had started and pitched three innings on Tuesday.
Up next was George Jones, a lefty-hitting first baseman who had struck out and walked in his first two plate appearances. Ling struck him out swinging on a split-fingered pitch in the dirt, and the side was retired once again.
In to pitch in the fifth was righty Ben Riley, who threw even harder than Martin had, and mixed his fastball with a stellar curveball. Riley proceeded to strike out the side on only 11 pitches, and it was on to the bottom half.
In the bottom half, the Jaguars got the green light, swiping two bases off of the Ling/Tibbits combo and loading the bases once again for Will Rockford, this time with zero outs. Rockford stayed patient and drew a walk, scoring the second run of the game for the Jaguars and putting the tying run just 90 feet away. However, both Anton West and Jace Oliver struck out, and Carlsbad East’s final hope to score in the inning was backup first baseman Davis Connolly, who had come in for defense in the top half but was a fairly decent hitter in his own right.
Connolly got hold of a 1-2 fastball from Ling and slapped it to left field for a base hit, scoring the tying run but only that run, and Ling managed to recover to get a flyout from the next batter, Tommy Andrews. Therefore, the game entered the sixth inning tied at 3 runs apiece, and with Ben Riley still on the mound for Carlsbad East (but due up first in the bottom half).
After center fielder Dante Dillard lined out hard to second base, Harry Hustle popped up to right field, but the ball was dropped for an error. Harry then used his speed to steal second, but the combination of Ben Riley’s live arm and catcher Peter Mallett’s equally strong arm led to a caught stealing on his subsequent attempt to take third.
As Coach Miller yelled at Harry for giving himself the green light, third baseman David Dobbs stood at the plate up 3-0 in the count. He took one more outside pitch and trotted down to first base, representing the go-ahead run as the lineup turned over and leadoff man James Wilson strode to the dish.
The Carlsbad East coach then made an unusual move, moving Riley out to shortstop and having Tommy Andrews pitch to the next two batters. However, this move was simply because the coach intended to intentionally walk both Wilson and Johnny Boyega, loading the bases (and thus getting a force at any base) for the presumed pinch-hitter Avery Crumbliss, a far inferior hitter to either of the new base-runners. Riley was then placed back on the mound and allowed only one warm-up pitch before he faced Crumbliss, who indeed did pinch-hit for pitcher Wei Ling — meaning that Lake Lagunov would be coming in on two days’ rest to pitch the bottom of the sixth inning, and most likely any extra innings after that.
However, he would at least be pitching with a lead, as Avery stepped in and slapped a 2-1 fastball the other way for a base hit, scoring two, and Jaxon Stills followed by crushing a three-run homer over the left-field fence. Lefty Quinn Allen came in and got Danny Hummer to fly out to center, ending the inning with the Raiders up 8-3.
P.J. Traynor, previously the designated courtesy runner for the catcher Mallett, pinch-hit to lead off the bottom of the sixth. It was possible that if Mallett reached base, one of the three seventh-graders dressed as emergency backups would enter as his courtesy runner; however, both Traynor and Mallett grounded out, bringing up Aaron Quinn, who popped a solo homer to left to narrow the lead to four runs.
Caspar Stephens, the center fielder, drew a walk, but Will Rockford couldn’t come through in the clutch a second time, striking out to end the game.
After the game, Coach Miller said that while he was proud of the team for pulling out the win, there would also be punishment coming from the trio of ejections in the third inning. Specifically, the team would be running triangles (running from home plate to right field to left field back to home plate) during Monday’s practice. The boys were familiar with running triangles, as they often had to run one as conditioning at the end of practice, but the plural “triangles” implied that they would be running not just one, but several triangles as punishment.
Indeed, they ended up running a total of ten triangles during practice; while the boys all hated it (and many of them threw up afterward), a handful did notice something the following day: their legs were stronger than before, and some of them could run faster than they had previously.
(Jimmy: RUN SPD +1) (Stanislaus: PWR +2) (Anthony: RUN SPD +1) (Johnny: PWR +2) (Lake: RUN SPD +1) (Matthew: RUN SPD +1) (Cody: PWR +2) (Brady: RUN SPD +1)
Also notable through the next week was that Jason Hamilton recovered from his leg bruise in time to suit up on Friday for a red/blue double-header against local pushover St. Joseph’s Academy; the visiting Lions hadn’t had a winning season in the twenty-first century to date, and were already 0-4 on the young season. Most of this was due to the fact that the school only allowed two practices a week for their teams (and only one practice if there were games scheduled in a given week), and many exceptional young athletes transferred to other local schools because they felt this rule left them wildly underprepared for competition against teams that had been playing together for years and often practiced (or played) five days a week, if not more.
However, St. Joseph’s did have one standout on the baseball field this season: seventh-grade outfielder Chase Coolidge, who had been placed on the Lions’ A team as a sixth-grader and led the team in batting average (.299), runs scored (19), runs batted in (14), and stolen bases (5) while starting all but two games in left field. The lefty-hitting, lefty-throwing youngster was back at it again in 2017, coming into the matchup with a .667 (6 for 9) batting average, four runs, and two RBI.
The Lions’ B team lined up like this for the first game:
St. Joseph’s Academy Lions (B)
(1) Josh Lovejoy, CF (2) James Van Pelt, 2B (3) Zachary Simon, 3B (4) Mark Johnson, SS (5) Matthew Young, 1B (6) Ryan Cooper, RF (7) Ben Davis, DH (8) Casey Ziegler, C (9) Jacob Swann, LF (NB) Joe Harris, P
Walker Grove, with young Coach Collins at the helm for a day, countered with an unusual lineup:
Walker Grove Raiders (Red)
(1) Andy Teasdall, 3B (2) Harris Potts, 2B (3) Brady Hewitt, RF (4) Evan Woolsey, EH (5) Stanislaus Lem, C (6) Jimmy James, EH (7) Jason Hamilton, 1B (8) Matthew Simpson, P (9) Tanner Davis, LF (10) Mason Phelps, SS (11) Colby Lemieux, CF
Once again, Danny Thornton would be looking on from the dugout; his infected knee was starting to heal, but the medicine he had been on had caused a mild allergic reaction, and he had spent another few days recovering from the subsequent illness, setting back his recovery from the knee injury itself. However, he was eyeing a return to practice by the end of the following week, and would most likely be able to play in the team’s first conference game in two weeks.
In the bottom of the first, Stanislaus came up to bat with runners on the corners and two outs against the right-hander Joe Harris, who had been varying only his location and not his actual pitches thus far; as far as the Raiders knew, all he had in his arsenal was the four-seam fastball he had been pumping in to the first four batters. However, he was very good at making the ball appear to “rise” and had been changing location well thus far.
Stanislaus looked down to third, where he received the following signals: cap, right sleeve, left sleeve, belt, left shoe, left sleeve.
What sign is on? (dustyfarmer)
A. Straight steal B. Double steal C. Squeeze bunt D. There is no sign E. idk maybe ask the catcher?
_________________ Olive - she/they // NAPOLI FOR MVP // post count doesn't matter
yeah that log's dead too- i mean on hiatus (yes that one too) (seriously all of them now lol) (haha unless...?)
"All people are good for something. The important thing is finding what." - Tom
BrewersFuzz wrote: PEDs wrote: i think we banned him cause he was an idiot glad i never got banned for that
Second Member of the 10,000 Post Cult
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