The Chicago Hounds defeated the Vikings 6-2 tonight at a weedy, horrible Taft High School field tonight, behind the gutty complete game performance of Jeremy Schmitz (#3, P). Schmitz did not have his best stuff and was nursing a sore arm, but he committed to seven innings early in the game and he produced.
The Hounds have won 5 in a row, and are now legitimately in 6th place in the CMBA, which would put them in the 6th playoff spot if the season were to end today. After a 3-9-1 start, this has been a remarkable turnaround for the Hounds. The Hounds continued with great defense tonight, as they were better suited to the ridiculous bounces Taft brought–the home Vikings were much more perplexed and the Hounds reached base several times on hits? errors? how do you score it when it really appears to be the field’s fault? The Hounds were also blessed with some favorable calls from umpire Laguardia Cooper. Yes, I have been in this league for 13 years, and I finally asked Coop what his first name is tonight. Laguardia. Like the airport.
The Hounds offense was led by Nolan Bielinski (#4, C) who reached safely all 4 plate appearances, and scored 2 runs. TJ Rinaldi (#1, CF), Keith Richardson (#17, 1B), Matt Hansen (#26, 2B), and Matthew Steffens (#5, SS) also scored Hound runs, and Max Kiefer (#21, LF) got off a recent snide with a line drive RBI single. The defense was led by Brent Schoenbach (#7, 3B) who made the bad bounces seem like child’s play. The infield turned a nice double play, and Jack Diechl (#31, RF) caught a line-drive ball in the dark and in the rain late in the game that most Hounds were unable to even see. Key play, just need to get him some baserunning lessons!
The Hounds next play the Red Sox in a doubleheader at Taft on Saturday, and play the league leading Aviators on Sunday at Winnemac. A sweep will put the Hounds above .500 for the first time this season.
See you there!