Last night the Hounds’ first priority was preventing a forfeit as they were struggling to get enough players to Maywood on a Tuesday night. But after fighting traffic and picking up Nelson Bowers (#48, 1B) at the final green line stop, the Hounds had enough for a full squad literally just one minute before game time. Scorekeeper Nick Ingram (#36) showed up ready to play despite his broken wrist, just to help the team have enough to avoid the -2 point penalty for a forfeit. Baseball is definitely a team sport, but a team truly relies on individuals such as Nick.
The Red Sox quickly took a 4-0 lead in the first two innings off of Casey Peterson (#30, P), but Peterson then settled down and pitched 3 more strong innings, allowing only 1 more run. Casey’s five innings pitched matched his season high total and the Hounds really needed him to eat up those mound innings with their depleted squad. But the Hounds managed to score just a single run on their side of the book, and lost 5-1 after only 5 innings as the game was called by lightning, or rain, or darkness, or whatever Coop decided to make sure the game was over. We were a little upset at the time as it was only 7:30 pm, and it seemed we had plenty of time to wait out the lightning, but in the end Coop was proven right, as the rain came pouring down in buckets just minutes later and it was clear we could not have finished the game.
The Hounds have been scoring machines during this 2019 CMBA campaign, but not lately. Could it be the little-known-and-understudied “podcast effect”? Probably not. Regression to the mean? Yep, that checks out. In any event, the Hounds have now lost 2 games in a row while scoring only 1 run in each game. Time to get the bats back on track for the final 11 games of the year.
What offense there was last night was led by leadoff batter Garrett Eddy (#22, CF), who singled sharply all three times to the plate. Unfortunately Eddy was stranded on the bases all three times as the 2-3-4-5-6 batters all failed to reach base. TJ Rinaldi (#1, RF) singled in the second inning and scored the only Hound run. Rinaldi also had a couple nice catches in right field and broke one of his favorite wood bats on an inside pitch. Brand-new Hound Justin Thornton (#9, DH) singled sharply in both of his at bats as well. Matthew Steffens (#5, SS) walked, and on that walk Rinaldi scored the only run as the ball got past the catcher in the spacious area behind the plate at Veterans Memorial Maywood Park. But, 1 run was simply not enough to win today, especially not in yet another rain-shortened game. So much rain this year!
The Hounds look to secure the K’s Cup at Winnemac on Saturday v. the Electrons (game starts at 9:30 am, celebration hopefully begins at 11:45 am) and then have the final/rubber/game 3/season-series-determining matchup against the Red Sox at Maywood on Sunday (game starts at 12:30 pm). Hope to see you there!