You know the drill, these things write themselves. The Chicago Hounds displayed great defense, yet again had stellar pitching, couldn’t score, lost by 1. Today it was a 3-2 loss to the Orioles at Ridgewood High School.
Matt Burch (#6, P, 3-1, ERA 2.00 in 28 innings pitched) suffered his first loss of the year, scattering 7 hits, walking only 2, and striking out 6, pitching a complete game. He has been the Hounds mound MVP this season, and will be looking to provide some offense tomorrow as the DH.
The Hounds defense only gave up one error today. Matthew Steffens (#5, SS) had 4 putouts and 5 assists at shortstop, and Tony Correa (#13, C) was stellar behind the plate, including adding to the popular Hound catcher assist stat, this time on a throw to second to force a runner after a fly pop dropped in between the mound and the plate.
The Hounds only had 5 hits today. Steffens had 2 singles, T.J. Rinaldi (#1, CF) singled and scored, Max Kiefer (#21, RF) singled and had 2 RsBI, and Kyle Hanson (#2, PH) had a line-drive pinch hit single in the final frame. Keith Richardson (#17, LF), Brent Schoenbach (#7, 3B), Rinaldi, Correa, Eduardo Sotelo (#25, 1B), and Patrick Stacy (#16, RF) each walked, and Kiefer also reached by error. But despite those 12 baserunners, the Hounds could only plate 2 (Rinaldi and Correa off of the single by Kiefer). Twice the Hounds failed to score after loading the bases (in the third, and again in the 7th).
The best play of the game came in the 4th inning when the game was tied. With 1 out the Orioles catcher singled and was replaced at first by a courtesy runner. The Orioles only had 9 men at the game, and were not employing a first base coach. The Oriole pinch runner asked Eduardo at first base how many outs there were, and Eduardo simply lied to him and said “two outs.” The next Oriole batter hit a routine fly ball to short, but the courtesy runner scooted to second, thinking there were 2 outs. Steffens threw to Sotelo for a quick 6-3 double play, as the duped runner screamed, “but he told me there were two outs!!!!”
Hounds play the Electrons tomorrow at Winnemac Park at 9:30 am. Jeremy Schmitz is on the mound, the Hounds look to start a very long winning streak by bringing some anger to their at-bats tomorrow, and then we will celebrate at K’s Dugout, this time, we will buy the Electrons their beers.