"Blame it on Joey" Sox lose 9-8
I am calling this the "Blame it on Joey" edition of the Black Sox recap. Not that I want to blame Joey so much as Joey said after the game to blame it on him. In my ongoing quest to do whatever it takes to make this team happy, I am hanging this loss squarely on his shoulders. Seriously, Joey came to the plate with one out and the Black Sox needing a baserunner and had his best hit of the season, a hard line drive to right-center which got caught up in the high grass giving the centerfielder a chance to make a perfect throw to gun Joey out at second. It was a good effort and he just got beat on a great play. Final score Luna 9, Sox 8.
Highlights
Time to sound like a broken record again... we put up a good fight against the hottest team in the league. Luna came in with six straight wins including big back-to-back wins over the Hellfish and SDEC. We had a chance to win at the end and just couldn't get it done. No excuses, but we played well enough to beat most teams in our division today.
Pitching - Gus pitched 6 strong innings and left with an 8-6 lead. Jim battled strongly in relief, giving up a couple of runs in the 7th and one in the 8th. But for a couple of tough breaks in the 7th, he would have got out of that one unscathed. Luna averages about 20 runs a game, so holding them to 9 is no embarrassment.
Hitting - Several Black Sox had big days:
Defense - We played generally good defense once again. Once again, we had no dropped balls and made the routine plays look, well, routine. Steve gave us another strong game behind the plate.
Lowlights - we ran ourselves out of a couple of innings with players thrown out at the plate. Hesitation (and slipping) rounding third cost us with at least three Sox thrown out at the plate -- although I believe Nestor was safe on one of the plays. To our credit though, we also manufactured some runs with aggressive baserunning -- we need to continue to be aggressive out there. One thing I want to impress on everyone: although you are expected to listen to your base coaches, ultimately, it is the player who has the final decision. If you get a bad jump, slip, hesitate, etc., stop, and get back to the base.
We had nine strikeouts for the afternoon (2 for yours truly) and continue to strikeout more than I'd like.
Looking Forward
Next week we play the Pirates 1 pm at SDHS. The Pirates are off to a strong start and are 5-2, pending todays game vs. the Fighting Hellfish. With all the missed games we are likely looking at a couple of double-headers down the road. We have a double-header scheduled for the Sunday after Thanksgiving... if you can't make it, let me know ASAP.
Batting Leaders through game 6 (Name, Avg., OBA) sorted by OBA
1. M. Gray
0.524
0.545
2 Juan
0.471
0.526
3. Gus
0.353
0.450
4. Dan
0.364
0.417
5. M. Gross
0.333
0.417
Highlights
Time to sound like a broken record again... we put up a good fight against the hottest team in the league. Luna came in with six straight wins including big back-to-back wins over the Hellfish and SDEC. We had a chance to win at the end and just couldn't get it done. No excuses, but we played well enough to beat most teams in our division today.
Pitching - Gus pitched 6 strong innings and left with an 8-6 lead. Jim battled strongly in relief, giving up a couple of runs in the 7th and one in the 8th. But for a couple of tough breaks in the 7th, he would have got out of that one unscathed. Luna averages about 20 runs a game, so holding them to 9 is no embarrassment.
Hitting - Several Black Sox had big days:
- Nestor, Joey, Steve P. and Mike Gray all reached base 2/4
- Jim M. reached base 3/4 (2 hits).
- Mike Gross reached base 3/4 (2 hits) and played strong centerfield with Juan out.
- Every Black Sox batter had at least one hit today.
Defense - We played generally good defense once again. Once again, we had no dropped balls and made the routine plays look, well, routine. Steve gave us another strong game behind the plate.
Lowlights - we ran ourselves out of a couple of innings with players thrown out at the plate. Hesitation (and slipping) rounding third cost us with at least three Sox thrown out at the plate -- although I believe Nestor was safe on one of the plays. To our credit though, we also manufactured some runs with aggressive baserunning -- we need to continue to be aggressive out there. One thing I want to impress on everyone: although you are expected to listen to your base coaches, ultimately, it is the player who has the final decision. If you get a bad jump, slip, hesitate, etc., stop, and get back to the base.
We had nine strikeouts for the afternoon (2 for yours truly) and continue to strikeout more than I'd like.
Looking Forward
Next week we play the Pirates 1 pm at SDHS. The Pirates are off to a strong start and are 5-2, pending todays game vs. the Fighting Hellfish. With all the missed games we are likely looking at a couple of double-headers down the road. We have a double-header scheduled for the Sunday after Thanksgiving... if you can't make it, let me know ASAP.
Batting Leaders through game 6 (Name, Avg., OBA) sorted by OBA
1. M. Gray
0.524
0.545
2 Juan
0.471
0.526
3. Gus
0.353
0.450
4. Dan
0.364
0.417
5. M. Gross
0.333
0.417
posted by Dan at 3:01 PM
5 Comments:
Technically I was thrown out about 10 feet from home.
Right, but you stopped and started again, that probably was the difference, especially with the throw up the line. You weren't the only one... Alex slipped rounding third in the first and was thrown out also.
I was done either way. Whoever threw it to the catcher made sure of that.
Good game this morning. That guy at centerfield was Victor. We look forward to playing you guys again sometime down the line.
Thanks Luna, we'll remember Victor.
Post a Comment
<< Home