April 29 2007

Unwin Park. 10am. Surrey Indians vs Newton Royals.

Talk about clutch. As happy as the rest of us are after today's game, Scott must be walking on air. We hope he touches down in time for Wednesday's practice, but we won't blame him at all if he's still afloat.

Clay had a pre-game opportunity to make two dollars if he did a teddy-bear headstand. He declined.

In our best attempt at sounding like a broken record, today's game was a pitcher's duel from the start. Chris started on the mound, his first time on the mound since a self-described "shit" outing in the later part of the opening game. He recovered very well, allowing just a few scattered hits and stranding several runners.

In a game where most of us just couldn't find our swings, we needed timely hitting more than ever. And eventually we got it. With a runner in scoring position, Aaron hit a blooper the opposite way, just out of reach of a diving rightfielder and just on the fair side of the foul line. That huge RBI put us up 1-0. The top photo in this post is Aaron's swing on that very play.

While most of us struggled at the plate, we have it on good authority that newbie Kris was 3-for-4 at the plate, getting things done in a quiet manner. Attakid.

The Royals, on average, were hitting the ball much better than us with several hard drives to the outfield that eventually got them the tying run followed by a go-ahead run, possibly in the same inning, possibly not - we can't remember.

Things looked promising when Chris stroked a triple to centre, but he was left stranded. That might have happened when it was still 1-0 us or tied at 1 or us down 2-1. Again, we can't remember. The bottom photo in this post is Chris's swing on that very play.

Today's inability to remember things caused us some embarrassment in one inning. After recording what we believed to be the third out of the inning, we all began to exit the playing field. Just as the infielders were about to cross the firstbase line the homeplate ump announced, "that's only two outs guys". Oops.

We do remember playing the field in the bottom of the eighth down 2-1. Looking ahead to a last-chance top of the ninth after going three-up-three-down in the top of the eighth, our future looked bleak. We held them to no runs and were now down to our final three outs.

And then it happened. Cue the comeback!

[iPod alert] With the tying run on base, Scott up to bat representing the go-ahead run, and the videocamera rolling, there's hope in the air. A high fastball comes in, and Scott turns on it. Deep to left - back, back, back, and gone. First homerun of the season. The dugout erupts and the team makes its way to homeplate to meet and greet and maybe high-five the hero. [a next-day update: a link to the video of the dinger is now on the sidebar: scott - 04/29/2007]

We now took the field in the bottom of the ninth, three outs away from a victory. Aaron had taken over on the mound in the sixth and was looking to make this a quick inning. First batter hits a drive to left-centre but the ball is tracked down by the fleet-footed centrefielder. The next batter got a single but Aaron then hit overdrive and shut the door.

Final score 3-2. A two game winning streak, and with a 2-1 record we're above .500 for the first time this season. Next up: Aldergrove Giants on Sunday May 6th at Whalley at 1:30pm. BE THERE!

Today's iPod.
Please see paragraph number twelve - you know, the one with the iPod alert. Kudos.