Monday night’s game against the Coulas Bone Crushers meant nothing to Storm who had already locked up first place. It was clear the game meant nothing as almost half the team signed out and at least three of the players who showed up had, at the very least, contemplated signing out. One player said he only showed up because he had received four emails telling him he had to show up and play. So Storm showed up with a shorthanded squad of nine with many players playing out of position. Ken was moved from second to shortstop, but you wouldn’t know it wasn’t his natural position as he scooped up everything hit to him and made some beautiful throws to first. Joey was patrolling the outfield due to the lack of outfielders. He made some impressive throws in. Mills was there playing his natural position and covering a lot of ground. The other team said they shouldn’t hit it to him, but that was hard to accomplish since Mills was all over the field flashing his leather.
The game did mean something to Coulas. They were one of six teams within one win of each other. Third and Eighth place were only one win apart. Coulas needed to win both games to have any shot of finishing third.
Storm was stubborn though, and as mentioned, they played some solid defence and held the Bone Crushers to a crushingly low score. As a matter of fact, the Bone Crushers didn’t score until the fourth inning, when they scored four and made it seem like it could be a tight finish. But Storm closed the doors and only allowed one more run through the final three frames.
While Storm didn’t have anything to play for as a team, Duran had something to play for as he continued his pursuit of the league home run crown. He entered the game four out of first, but did his best to gain the ground. He launched the first pitch he saw in the first inning off the path and against the tennis courts. His second at bat saw a massive home run. He had a home run to hit in each of his last two at bats, but was unable to knock one out of the park.
On a less positive note, Storm had some more baserunning issues. This has been a common theme throughout the season. Storm has run into a few too many outs, and it happened again Monday night. With Brian on first and Sam on second, Mills launched a high fly ball to short left centre. The fielders had been playing deep, but it was a fly ball. Initially, Sam was doing the right thing, which was staying put, but as the ball hung in the air, Mills decided he was not only batter, but also base coach, and for some reason started yelling “let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” at which point Sam started running. Of course, the fielder caught the ball and doubled Sam off easily. Not a huge problem as Storm was winning by a wide margin but still problematic in the way it played out. Storm also had a runner easily thrown out at home. We won’t say who, but there was an awful lot of Reneing rounding third. Not sure if this was a coaching issue or a running issue. Will Storm be able to get its baserunning blunders out of the way before the season ends, or will Storm literally run itself out of the playoffs with errors like these.
Cycle Watch:
Duran missed the single, but he did hit two home runs, so…,
Rene missed the triple, but he hit a home run out
Storm 15 - Coulas 5
Boxscore | ||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Total |
Coulas | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Storm | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | x | 15 |
Notable Boxscores:
Duran 4 for 5, 2 home runs, 5 RBI, 4 runs
Joey 3 for 3, 3 runs, RBI
Mills 3 for 4, 3 runs, RBI
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