Our first house league baseball regular season came to an end; we finished, after tiebreakers, in last place with a 3-9 record; we had lost 6 in a row. Yes, the wheels came off a bit down the stretch; the 4 games in 3 days shorthanded really sunk us. Still, I believe in our team; we have had stretches of good baseball. We have good pitchers. When the playoffs started Saturday, I thought we would hold our own; we did.
It was the 1 vs 16 matchup, David vs Goliath. Thing about it was, that we had already beaten this team in the regular season. Yes, one of our 3 wins was against the #1 ranked team in our league; another one of our wins was against the #2 ranked team in our league… go figure. You know I was pumping this info into my team in our pre-game huddle. That, plus the fact that all teams were 0-0 at this point; it was a new season. Here we go…
This playoff game featured the return of our #1 drafted player. Yes, the 5’10” 12 year old was back after recovering from his fractured left thumb. We definitely missed him this year. I was planning on putting him on the mound, and telling the other team… go ahead, hit him. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Not only was I going to be limited using him due to travel commitments the following day (he plays travel ball OUTSIDE the park; the inside travel teams know the priority is house playoffs), but now, I couldn’t use him at all, based on him pitching the day before; oh well. You know, have to go with the flow; I could get pissed, but… That’s OK. We had our #1 pitcher all year take the ball; the same kid who shut this team out for 4 innings earlier this year. We’re good.
He pitched his ass off again, shutting them out for the first 3 innings. In the meantime, the return of our kid paid dividends, as he hit a 2 run HR to give us a 2-0 lead; let’s do this!!! The shutout wouldn’t last; he gave up 4 runs before he was lifted for maximum pitch count. Our next pitcher up was my son, who pitched 1.1 shutout innings to hold them at 4. Unfortunately, the 2 runs we scored were the only ones we scored all game. A tough, well-played 2 run loss. I was proud of our kids.
We pitched well enough to win; we played defense well enough to win. They just hit it where we weren’t. I think we made 1-2 mistakes all game; can’t ask for much more than that. Our bats couldn’t get it done; the 2nd pitcher they brought in was really good. Still, it was a respectable performance; definitely holding my head high, as I told them all to do, after this hard fought playoff game. The season isn’t over yet; to the consolation bracket we go!!!
So, no happy ending… yet that is. We could still win our next 3 games to win the consolation bracket; don’t count us out yet!!! I would be extremely happy if we were able to pull that off. Until then…
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