Crew outgun the Storm

Storm’s season came to an abrupt halt as The Crew accrued more runs than Storm did. 

It was clear this was going to be an offensive affair from the start as The Crew hit two home runs in the first inning to score three. Storm hit a home run in their half and one upped The Crew in the first as they scored four to take an early lead. 

Storm would extend the lead in the second, as they managed to keep The Crew off the board, and then they scored, and scored, and scored. The inning was highlighted by Rene launching a grand slam. Joey also hit a triple as Storm maxed out the inning. 

The Crew got right back in it in the third with a three run home run. Storm would only add one, and it was 11-6 after three. Storm changed pitchers and Al shut down The Crew in his first inning pitching. Storm also blanked in the fourth and the score remained 11-6. 

The Crew found their groove in the fifth. Captain Underpants got pantsed as The Crew took advantage of the open inning and scored seven to take the lead. But Storm was the home team and still had their at bats. But they didn’t do anything with their at bats, and Storm trailed 13-11 after five. Storm had overcome much greater deficits against the Expos, and were not worried. 

In the top of the 6th. Storm deviated from their original pitching plan. They did the same thing against Hanet, and it worked perfectly. Since Captain Underpants gave up seven runs in the 5th, they thought going back to Jeff might stop the Crew from brewing up more runs. Unfortunately, however, Jeff lived up to his nickname of “Batting Practice.” The Crew batted through almost their entire lineup without recording an out, before Jeff walked off the field and gave the ball back to Al, who immediately recorded an out. The Crew scored a whopping 12 runs in the inning. 

Storm had practised coming back from large deficits against the Expos, but this deficit was too large and had been accrued too late in the game for Storm to recover. Storm put up a valiant effort in the sixth, scoring five capped off by a massive grand slam by Sam. Craig knocked a three run blast in the seventh, but that was all the offence Storm could manage and they lost 27-19. 

It was a tough way to end the season. Congratulations to The Crew who went on to win the tournament.

The Crew    27   -   Storm    19

Boxscore
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
The Crew	3	0	3	0	7	12	2	27
Storm	4	6	1	0	0	5	3	19

Quarterfinals vs Hanet

Storm started a little better against Hanet than they did the previous day against the Expos. It wouldn't be hard to do better than being mercied, but Storm managed to keep Hanet off the board. Storm then started strong. Joey hit a two run home run, and of the first ten batters, the only outs made were productive as they were sac flies. 

The second inning was sponsored by Mother Goose as both teams dropped an egg on the scoreboard.  Hanet actually played superlative defence to keep Storm off the board. Hanet actually dropped their third consecutive egg on the board in the top half of the third. Craig got the third inning started by hitting a triple. Storm strung together a bunch of singles and sacs and put up another 5 for a 10-0 lead. They had trailed by 10 the day before, though, so they knew that a 10 run lead wasn't safe.

As if to illustrate the point, Captain Underpants, in his return to the mound, gave up a massive home run on the first pitch he threw. Hanet would score two more and all of a sudden it was a game. In the bottom of the inning, Rene wasted Al's courtesy runner by launching a two run blast. 

Lars launched his second home run in as many innings and Hanet scored four to make it 12-7. But Storm was not going to lie down and let Hanet do to them what they did to the Expos. In the bottom of the 5th, Storm strung together 9 hits and a walk to score seven runs and put the game likely out of reach. But it is slopitch,  and anything can happen. Lars hit his third home run in as many at bats, but that was all the offence Hanet could muster. 

Storm recovered from their scare against the Expos and played solid softball to buy a berth in the semifinals.

Storm    19   -   Hanet    9

Boxscore
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Hanet	0	0	0	3	4	2	0	9
Storm	5	0	5	2	7	0	0	19

Storm Storms Back!!

Captain Underpants found his kryptonite in his achilles heel, and could be seen limping around between games. Shortly before the second game began, he pulled himself from the lineup as a late scratch. This meant that batting practice Thomas would have to pitch the whole game with no relief in sight. Batting Practice lived up to his nickname in the first inning. After giving up a single, double, and walk, the cleanup hitter for the Expos cleaned up and knocked a grand slam. They had scored four runs in four batters. They would go on to mercy Storm scoring six. For context, Storm only gave up six runs in the entire game against Surge. Storm managed to cut the lead in half as Duran launched a two run home run and Craig launched a solo shot. 

Storm fared better defensively in the second only giving up two runs. However, the offence fared worse and was blanked, meaning the deficit was growing. The Expos got four more in the third to extend their lead to 12-3. Things were looking very bleak for Storm. Rene hit a triple scoring two and then scored on a single by Joey, and Storm now had half the production of the Expos trailing 12-6.

But the Expos weren’t done yet. They added another four runs in the top of the fourth to extend their lead to 16-6. At this point, people wondered if Storm had enough thunder in their bats to come back. After stringing together a bunch of singles, Sam decided to do the Pilkey thing and blasted a three run home run. This meant Storm had mercied the Expos and pulled to 16-12.

There wasn’t a pitching change, because there was nobody else to pitch, but the rally seemed to have sparked something in Jeff, or the Expos had just exhausted all of their offence in the first four innings, because after seemingly being able to hit at will (poor Will always being targeted like that), the Expos were unable to muster much offence. They would be shut out for the next two innings. Storm, however, would also be shut out in the 5th, but in the 6th they took the lead scoring five runs aided by Jeff’s two run triple, and Mills’s double. 

The Expos wouldn’t go down quietly, though. In the top of the seventh, their leadoff batter hit a triple. It seemed like a guarantee that the tying run would come in to score. The next batter hit a pop fly to centre. Craig charged in and made a nice catch and got himself into position to throw home, but the runner stayed realizing Craig has a cannon. The next batter hit a ground ball to Joey who fielded it cleanly, checked the runner and threw to first. With two outs, it looked like Storm just might hold on to win. The next batter also hit a ground ball to Joey, but this one skipped away. The Expos scored the tying run and forced Storm to play the bottom of the inning. Sort of. A quick glance at the tie breaking rules shows that the first tie breaker that would have applied was fewest runs against, which meant Storm would have finished first even if the game had ended in a tie, but it’s better to win it out right, and that’s what Storm did. The Expos found themselves between a number of rocks and miscellaneous hard places as Storm was at the top of the order with four consecutive home run hitters and only needing one run to win.  Rene led off with a double. Joey got out. The Expos then decided to walk both Duran and Craig, moving the tying run to 3rd base.  Ken then came up calm under pressure and smacked the ball to the outfield. Everyone advanced. Storm won!

Storm had trailed 12-3 and 16-6, but came back to win 18-17. Will the come from behind win be the experience the team needs to push them all the way to the championship game? Will Captain Underpants be available to pitch? There are many questions to answer, and only time will tell. Storm faces off against Hanet in the quarter final at 10AM Sunday!

Storm    18   -   Expo's 17

Boxscore
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Expo’s	6	2	4	4	0	0	1	17
Storm	3	0	3	6	0	5	1	18

Storm over Surge in Playoff Game 1

 Storm finished the regular season with their second best record in Storm history. Their best record led to a disappointing loss in the championship game.

Storm started the playoffs strong. Jeff struggled to find the strike zone in the first, but found it after the first couple of batters and Storm minimised the damage allowing only one run. They then scored the max six. They almost did it without recording an out. 

Storm completely shut the door for the next three innings and scored five in the second and six in the third. They seem to have run out of steam offensively after that and scored only two runs in the remaining three innings. 

The defence was strong. One play that didn't end the way they wanted to was when Ken travelled back into shallow left field. He tried to make a basket catch, but bobbled it numerous times. Duran was right there. He could have reached in and grabbed it, but the ball fell to the ground.

It didn't matter as Storm powered their way past Surge for a 19-6 win.

Storm    19   -   Surge 6

Boxscore
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Surge	1	0	0	0	4	1	0	6
Storm	6	5	6	0	1	1	x	19

Storm wins meaningless game against A's

Storm won a game that meant absolutely nothing to anybody on a warm Wednesday night. Storm had already clinched first place, and the A’s had a tight grip on the title of horse’s ass, so the game was for pride, or whatever slopitch players play for.

There were some highlights for Storm defensively. In the first inning, Al recorded all three outs (two by strikeout and one on a ground ball). Ken was looking like Cal Ripken, no wait, he was more bionic than iron, so maybe he was channelling  Col. Steve Austin. Either way, he looked great at short, which allowed Joey to hop around the outfield. Joey made a couple of nice grabs, but he was behaving rather like ET as every throw from the outfield looked like it was going home, rather than to the appropriate cutoff person. There were no obvious holes in the defence, though, and Storm held the A’s to one home run and five runs total.

Offensively, Storm was storming around the bases, their bats were made of thunder, the lightning struck more than twice as they rained down runs on the A’s. Or something like that. The only person with something to play for was Duran, who needed six home runs for the league lead. Storm actually hit enough that his spot in the order came up six times, but he was only able to launch one for a homer, and sprayed the rest around the field for a couple of singles and a double.

The whole team batted well, and the defence was strong, but there is one area of the game that has been haunting Storm all year, and that is baserunning. We saw another couple of baserunning blunders in this game. The Thane of Whitby wandered too far off third on a ground ball to the pitcher. He said he was trying to distract the pitcher, but when the pitcher bobbled the ball he took another step or two. He was now in blood stepp’d in so far that should he wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er, and as he tried to go o’er, he was tagged out in a rundown. Brian seemed to think that Brad’s running was textbook, and on a groundball to short LATER THE SAME INNING, Brian wandered too far off the base. He stopped, and the shortstop threw behind him to third. Brian pulled out some ballerina moves nobody knew were in his repertoire as he did the splits sliding back into third avoiding a tag.

Storm    29   -   A's 5

Boxscore
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Storm	0	4	5	6	4	10	x	29
A's	3	0	0	2	0	0	x	5

 

Notable Boxscores:

Everyone hit well except Al, which makes his 2 for 6 stand out (though the last one felt like a mercy ground out to help the A’s out of an inning)

Sam went 5 for 6 and claims his final out (which was the final out of the season) was a mercy out to end the inning