The Charm City Electric softball team is really starting to come together, but we learned a hard lesson tonight in our games at Double Rock Park. We dominated game one by the final of 20-7 but were unable to complete the sweep falling in the nightcap 12-7. The bats were out tonight and I was lights out pitching in our first game. We were able to jump out to a 15-3 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth inning. Our offense was led by our left fielder, Brian Seger who hit two grand slams in the win. Brian is arguably the best player on our team. He is locked in at the plate and can track a ball in the outfield as well as anyone who I have ever played with, but Brian struggles with his aggressiveness on the base paths. He made an out trying to stretch a double into a triple in his first at bat of the night, and he passed the runner in front of him and was called out to end game two. That ended any chance we had of rallying for the win.
I love it when I have the command to put the ball wherever I want to when I’m pitching and I definitely had that going for me last night. At one point I threw a ball with a 10 foot arc that started four inches off the outside corner and broke all the way across the plate to the inside corner for a called strike. I was able to make the ball break inside and outside whenever I wanted it to. It looked like we were going to 10 run our opponent but we committed four errors that led to four runs in the bottom of the sixth which helped extend the game. We left no doubt in the top of the seventh, scoring five more runs to seal the deal.
Our lack of focus was a preview of what would happen in game two. The second game was much closer than the first and it all came down to a disastrous sixth inning. We fell behind early but rallied behind back to back Home Runs to tie the game 7-7. That’s when things got a little weird. Rob Taylor hit a hot shot one hopper to third. Taylor carried the bat with him down the first base line assuming he was going to be thrown out, but the third baseman’s throw was poor and when Taylor realized he was going to be safe he dropped the bat and crossed the bag. The umpire called him out for carrying the bat to first. It was the wrong call and changed the whole inning for us. That led us to the sixth inning still tied at seven. Their leadoff hitter singled and set the stage for the biggest bonehead play of the game which was committed by me. The next hitter hit a rocket one hopper that I snagged with my glove and instead of turning and throwing to my shortstop to turn the easy double play I inexplicably flipped the ball back handed towards second base and ended up throwing the ball into center field instead. I could have turned two but now had runners on first and second with no one out. The miscue opened the door for a five run inning and left us trailing 12-7. That play will haunt me for the next two weeks. I don’t know what’s more frustrating making the error or not getting a chance to redeem myself at the plate. We threatened in the seventh but when Seger ran past the runner in front of him it ended the game. I was in the on deck circle when that happened. I have never seen a game end like that before but the longer you play the more things you see. Our playoffs are coming up in a couple of weeks we need to be able to keep focused after a win or we will be exiting pretty quickly. Our last week of the regular season is next week. One more chance to get it right before the playoffs start.
The best part of yesterday was our interview with David Van Sleet the head coach of the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team. They just wrapped up a pretty busy two week stretch that included a couple of their players appearing in the MLB Celebrity Softball Game. The team is 32-20 since starting their tour. We are going to see if we can get them here to do an event in the area. If you missed the interview here is the link below from the WNST Buyatoyota.com Audio Vault
Remember, if I can do it, you can do it too. Until next time…
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