The game started off well for Storm. The team batted through the order
and a bit in the first inning. After Jeff took a mighty swing and hit the ball
about 20 feet from home plate for an infield single, Duran followed with a
single, Joey doubled, and Craig hit his first three run home run of the night.
Broadway had a couple of chances to close the curtain on the first, but after a
nice scoop from their third basemen who stepped on third and then threw to first
in time, Broadway’s 1st baseman had missed his cue, and was not
standing on first claiming he thought the stage directions said to throw home.
The next play it was the 3rd baseman who misread the stage
directions. With runners on 1st and 2nd he fielded a
ground ball nicely, but instead of stepping on 3rd, he threw the
ball across the field, to the 1st baseman who was not at his base
yet. The ball sailed over his head. Storm was thankful for the miscues and took
a seven run lead to the bottom of the first.
Broadway, undeterred by the slow start, flipped the script on Storm and
put up five runs of their own. They hit two home runs, one of which was a solo.
Storm was okay with this as it gave them some home runs to play with. Storm knew that this would be a tough game
going in, and Broadway’s immediate bounce-back proved they were right.
Storm was unable to put up many runs in the 2nd. Joey led
off with a home run. That’s right. The very first batter after Broadway’s solo
home run gave the solo home run back. Then Craig ProcKnow came up and decided
to cut the tension with some comedy. He took a mighty swing fouling the first
pitch off directly to the mat. A second mighty swing had him down two strikes.
With a 1-2 count Brad threw a pitch about three feet short. Kraig moved up and
took a mighty swing, but missed the ball by three feet. Kraig then walked
slowly back to the bench and said, “well that was funny!”
Storm’s bats came back to life in the top of the 3rd. Four
singles and a double brought Kraig ProcKnow back up and, looking to get over
his big K, Kraig launched his 2nd three-run home run of the game.
Craig was now redeemed. Storm plated seven in the inning and took a more
comfortable lead.
No lead is truly comfortable against Broadway, however, and they proved
it as they came to the plate in the bottom of the 3rd. The TSN
turning point may have come with two out in the 3rd. A hard hit ball
to 3rd caused Jeff to take a step back to get the big hop, which he
got, and the ball went into his glove, but didn’t stay there. This two out
error allowed Neal to come up and launch a 3-run homer. Since Storm would go on
to lose by 3, this was a tough play. Storm still led 15-9 at the time, however.
Storm’s offense started to slow down, however. Storm scored nothing in
the 4th. Broadway only scored two to bring the score to 15-11. The
tension was rising. Storm scored three in the top of the 5th to
extend their lead to 18-11. Storm had only given up 18 runs in a game once all
season, and never more than 18, so the 18 runs on the board should have been
enough, but they weren’t. In the bottom of the 5th , Broadway scored
seven runs to bring the score to 18-17.
In the top of the 6th, Storm was starting with the top of
the order. The team needed runs, but also needed to be safe with the home runs
since Broadway was launching them fairly easily. Somebody said, “no solo shots,
boys,” to which Joey responded, “it won’t be a solo shot if Jeff gets on.” Jeff
led off with a single, followed by Duran’s single. Which put two people on so
Joey could launch a … line drive out to first base. Craig came up and launched
his third three-run home run of the day for a total of 9 RBI. This three -home run
9 RBI day is almost enough to make people forget about the strikeout. Almost.
Storm had given themselves some breathing room with a score of 21-17,
but Broadway believed the climax of the show was still to come and they were
right. In the bottom of the 6th, Broadway sent twelve batters to the
plate scoring eight runs. To put that in perspective, Storm has played four
games this year where they gave up fewer than eight runs in the entire game.
Now Storm had a tough hill to climb as they had to score four runs to
tie, five to win, and then get Broadway out in eight minutes. The race against
the clock turned out to be futile, as Storm’s offense sputtered, scoring only
one run on a sac fly leaving two batters with four combined home runs in the
game on-deck and in the hole.
It was a sad end to a great streak, but it’s only one game. Storm has
the chance to bounce back on Monday against Re/Max.
Notable boxscores:
Craig: 3/5, 3 HR, 9 RBI, Strikeout. The ups and downs of Craig’s day
were truly reflective of the team. Three massive home runs, a strikeout where
he swung at all three pitches and an infield pop up. The highs and lows of the
games were all encapsulated in that one boxscore.
Joey: 3 / 4, HR, 3 runs, 3 RBI
Duran: 4/5, 3 runs, RBI
Jeff: 3/4, 3 runs, 2 RBI
Brian: 4/5, run, RBI
Brad: 4/5
The rest of the write-up has little to do with baseball or the game and
is a little bit of a rabbit hole that this writer has descended. Read at your
own risk.
On a side note, there was an interesting discussion on game theory.
This was brought to a head when Joey courtesy ran for Brian, but because of
outs by Jeff and Duran, Joey then had to be run for because it was his turn to
bat. Duran claimed that it was good game theory to use your courtesy runners
when you needed them because there is no point ending the game with courtesy
runners in your pocket. Brad and others argued that they needed to be
strategically used.
Game theory initially was used for what are called
zero sum games. Zero sum games are games where one person’s successes cause
another person’s failures. The total score must always be zero. Therefore, if
someone gains something, someone else must lose it. The concept of game theory
extended into many other social sciences, economics in particular. For a
complete (and I’m certain total trustworthy history of game theory 😉)
read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory.
Or, for a likely more analytical and accurate, but less easily comprehended
explanation read here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gametheory.asp.
History and discussions of game theory aside, the
discussion of when, and how often to use courtesy runners is important. If
you’re in a game where only one person needs a courtesy runner (like last game)
it makes sense to use a courtesy runner every time he reaches base (the
likelihood that one player will reach base more than five times is low). Who
runs is the more important question. If Duran is insistent on using the fast
players and not simply anyone faster than the batter, then maybe Brian’s
placement in the order needs to be more strategic to allow the “faster” runners
at the top of the order to courtesy run for him. In the last five games, Brian
is the hottest hitter on team (according to batting average) going 15/20 with 8
runs and 9 RBI. Of course, the other option is to be less picky about who runs
for Brian.
When you have multiple runners who need courtesy
runners the situation becomes more complex. Still, Storm team management needs
to get their game theory together so the team doesn’t end up in another
situation where they burn two courtesy runners on one play and then, in the
final inning, hesitate to use a courtesy runner (also, why the hesitation
there? Brian was on 1st with one courtesy runner left. Use it. You
don’t want the game to end on a force play at 2nd when someone else
would have made it!).
Writer’s Note:
The English teacher in me needs to give credit where
credit is due. Scoops Jockovitch is clearly itching to get back behind the
keyboard as he kept telling me things that had to go into this write-up. So you
have him to thank for the use of K in Kraig’s name after the strikeout. You
also have him to blame for the digression into game theory, as he was the one
who insisted a discussion of game theory needed to be included after Duran’s
comments about game theory. The specific comments about game theory were mine.
HR's: Joey, Craig (3)
Boxscore
|
||||||||
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
Total
|
|
Storm
|
7
|
1
|
7
|
0
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
22
|
Broadway
|
5
|
0
|
4
|
2
|
6
|
8
|
x
|
25
|
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