Storm finish strong (and on time) against Broadway

Storm and Broadway traded blows and it looked like it might be last bat wins games as two heavy hitting teams faced off. It looked like Storm might cruise to another victory as Storm two runs on two pitches with a single and a home run by Duran (now that his family was gone and the black bat was safely back in his bat bag!). They kept hitting and scored six as Al hit a triple to end the inning with a max6. Storm then blanked Broadway and was on their way to an easy win.

NOT! Storm scored one run in the second, and then Broadway’s bats started singing as they scored a max 6 capped off by a home run. With the script flipped in the second act it was suddenly a suspenseful game that would come down to the final moments. 

Storm again responded well. Lance launched a solo home run to start the third and Mills hit a three run inside the park homer to end the third as Storm maxed out its potential. Broadway would not be dismayed either and responded with four of their own to keep the score close at 13-10. 

Storm would score four in the fourth powered by a two run blast by Joey. Broadway would get three and it looked like Storm was pulling away 17-13. But the fifth saw Storm go down after only four batters, including Mills popping up to the catcher, and Broadway saw their opening and they didn’t miss their shot. They scored four to tie the game 17-17. 

Storm now had to contend with Broadway and time as they headed into their last at bats. With the game tied after five and under 10 minutes left, Storm had to score enough to take the lead and leave enough time to get Broadway out if they wanted the win. Joey led off with an out, but Duran got the ball rolling with a triple. Lance walked, and Rene came up with a vengeance. Earlier in the game he had tracked a fly ball and foul territory perfectly, but the movement caused the ball to evade his glove and hit another part of his body so hard he went down and rolled around. If that wasn’t enough, on his way to bat Brian hit him in the back with a ball he was trying to return to the umpire. With a lot of pent up rage Rene took it out on the ball (was that the same ball that had so mercilessly assaulted his balls|?) and launched it way over the fence for a three run shot. Would three runs be enough? Should Storm declare the outs now and move on, or did they need more than three? As the talking heads discussed what to do, Storm got three more hits scoring a run. They were about to pull the plug on the inning when Al popped out. This led them to decide Mills would be the last batter no matter what happened. Mills then hit the ball to the fence and ran for his life. The problem was, nobody had told Greg Mills’s at bat was being treated like last batter in t-ball, and Mills nearly caught him at third base. Mills stayed on Greg’s heels all the way home, and Mills had his second three run inside the park home run of the game. Storm declared the final out and the game moved to the bottom of the inning. 

Storm likely had enough runs, but did they have enough time? Broadway had scored in every inning since the first, and a quick finish seemed unlikely. If anyone was up to the task, though, it was Captain Underpants. He kept pelting the strike zone, and Storm got some solid defence and was able to record three outs in five batters, but more importantly they recorded the three outs in under five minutes. Storm held on to win an exciting game that came right down to the final minute.

Storm    24  -   Broadway 17

Boxscore
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Broadway	0	6	4	3	4	0	x	17
Storm	6	1	6	4	0	7	x	24