Now We'll Take A Third Game

It was the same pre-game routine as the first game, but with a little bit more calm and focus assigned to the task at hand. Jesse spoke of an eerie feeling during the warm-up, but I needed to retort that we needed to focus ourselves and change the outcome with our play. The mood in the dugout before the game was quiet and focussed. We had the luxury of having Alex, Menzies and Jordan back after their trip to California, so we had lots of subs for the game, if needed.

For the Us Guys, they were starting their second pitcher. A larger set fella with some reasonable pace and a simple riser. I had seen him pitch for a couple innings against Rusty's and he didn't really show much for junk... most just a rising fastball was his main artillery. Despite coming back from the roadtrip on Monday afternoon, Alex was getting the start for us in Game 2. During the warm-up, he looked pretty sharp, so that put away a few of the doubts I had about him not being ready to go last night.

Game 2 meant we were up to bat first as the away team. Play ball!

Munden led off the inning with a little single into center field... I stepped up and laid down a bunt down the first base line, with the first baseman not picking up the ball when trying to apply the tag and I was safe at first... passed ball moved both of us to 2nd & 3rd... passed ball again, Munden scored, me to 3rd... Jesse went out... Alan drove me home on a groundout... Ryan singled... Jordan singled, Ryan scored and Jordan was pegged going to second on a close play. We were up 3-0 after the top half.

The only blemish in the bottom half of the inning was a walk that eventually scored the Us Guys first run of the game and it was still 3-1.

You know it's always generally a struggle to remember everything that happens in the game, despite knowing that you watched a great deal of it. Stupid failing memory.

The second inning was the bottom of the line-up... Derek, Dave & Aaron (batting for Alex, to save his arm). Yeah... the top half or the second half didn't last long. Sort of a non-memorable inning.

The third inning, it was back to the top of the order. Munden doubled... I walked... Jesse grounded one to short, I broke up the double-play with a good slide into second, Munden to 3rd... Alan came up singled in Munden and 1st & 2nd... Ryan singled, scored Jesse... Jordan singled to score Alan... and then Ryan hit into a soft double play. 5-1.

The Us Guys again responded with one run to make it 5-2 in the bottom half of the third. Alex was throwing a tight game and despite a couple hits, the defense was tight, making all their throws to the cut-offs and not throwing the ball away.

The best thing about playing defense behind Alex is that he is a groundball pitcher. There were tons of grounders to Jesse at third, Munden at short and myself at second, with only one runner beating a throw by Munden and Jesse bobbling one at third. Tight.

The rest of the game, upon review of my writing, gets a little fuzzy. The fourth inning was a nothing inning for both sides.

I had reached again, I think in the fifth inning when I hit into a Fielder's Choice to load the bases up, thanks to Derek and his keen base-running on third. I had reached... Jesse had another couple RBI's on the next at-bat and I was caught out at third making the turn. I think we ended up scoring three runs there to go up 8-2.



In the sixth inning, we picked up one more run on a solo homer by Josh (pictured coming into home above) and Alex struggled a bit to allow three runs in that frame. It was some decent hitting by the Us Guys that cashed in their runs, but we got out of the inning still ahead.

In the seventh frame, it was quick... including myself lining out to the second baseman. Unfortunately for me, the numbers didn't look too good... but they look worse than they actually were. I went 0-for-3, reached on error, reached on fielder's choice, groundout, walk, run scored and 4 or 5 assists in the field on groundouts.

The bottom half of the frame, last bats for the Us Guys, they scored one more on Alex before Aaron came on in relief to close the game. They scored one more in the inning for a 9-7 final for the Royals. The picture below was one of the last outs of the 7th inning where a groundball was hit sharply to Alan and as Alex and myself came over to cover, Alan lunged at the bag to take it with his glove and with the motion captured of the ump, you know what the call was. What a great play! I stopped up short to make sure the ump could see it or else the call may not have gone our way.



Game 3 goes tonight at Shouldice... 6:30pm again. CFCN News in Calgary was there last night and should be there again tonight. No parents, no Jen... so I had no crowd support, except from those who had shown up all year. Menzies was taking all the pictures that I had on my camera... including that wicked one of the play at first. Nice job!

Work is a tad quiet this morning... got to finish up the trouble client and then they're sending yet another registration statement for me to rush this afternoon, which I'm not looking forward to. Hopefully, I'm outta here in good time again today.

Anyways... gonna clean up my desk of a couple more big ones so I don't have to worry about them when I'm hungover tomorrow. Ha ha.