The Chicago Hounds defeated the Pirates 5-1 today behind sparkling defense and the third straight complete game win in a row from Alec Reinke (#14, P).

The Hounds are now 11-9 after 20 games of the 33 game season and probably need 17 to 19 wins to secure a playoff spot, so we need to go 6-7 to 8-5 the rest of the way. But 20 would be nicer, so let’s go 9-4 instead.

The Hounds also made roster moves today, adding three new players to fill out the squad for the playoff stretch. In particular we added Justin Thornton after a mini-tryout after today’s game. Justin played at Dominican University with former Hounds Robert Bavone, Adam Quinn, and Lucas McKinney. As chance would have it, we acquired Justin through TJ Rinaldi meeting him at Ks Dugout!
Today’s game was classic good Hounds–relying on quality pitching and great defense. We have scored the most runs per game this year, which is not our norm, but we returned to the standard we had set over the past 13 years of our fine pitching and defense. The only Pirate run of the game was the result of the only Hound error on the day, meaning Reinke’s ERA for the day was 0.0.

The Pirates pitcher was tough too, and the game was tied 1-1 going into the bottom of the 6th inning until a combination of the Hounds putting the ball in play for hits and for Pirates errors quickly led to a 5-1 lead. Then Reinke closed out the game for himself with a solid 7th inning, bringing the same 5 quality pitches as he had all game. 3 complete game wins in a row is quite a good run for any pitcher in any league.

The only controversy in the game came on an overthrow at first base by the Pirates shortstop, that may or may not have hit the Hounds’ first base coach Hans Hetrick (I honestly didn’t see it). The ball went out of play and the Hounds were awarded a run and an extra base for the runner at first based on the play. The Pirates were livid, mostly the pitcher (who again, threw an outstanding game), as they claimed that the play should have been called a dead ball with no baserunners advancing. Yet again, Herb said he “missed it”–which I now think is his code for, “I didn’t make a call, and my call is going to stand as a no call, but I will say I missed it hoping that satisfies people.” But, the Pirates had 3 more errors and the Hounds also had a few more hits, and the Hounds scored 4 in the inning so the play was moot, despite their anger.

We actually looked it up after the game and the Pirates were wrong–according to the MLB rules, a ball that hits a base coach inadvertently is live, and is *NOT* a dead ball, so the play was called correctly and their griping and dissatisfaction was just for nothing.

In the end, a great win for the Hounds and we hope to continue the winning streak to start getting well above .500 and to satisfy Big T’s prediction.
Again, tomorrow’s game was changed from the original schedule. We are now playing the Browns tomorrow at 12:15 pm at Winnemac (the game is NOT at Proviso West, and it is NOT at 9:30 am). See you there!