Unicorns 0, Challengers 8

In the second game, Challenger pitching stifled the Unicorns right from the outset. Despite walking three batters in the first inning (and four overall), Yusuke Azuma dominated the Huenenberg hitters, allowing just one hit (more on that later) and no runs in 6 sterling innings. The Unicorns, on the other hand, combined wild pitching with gag-inducing defense, which proved to be an unworkable combination. In the first inning, the Challengers put up 2 runs without the benefit of a hit (4 walks and 3 wild pitches). Only a poor base-running decision by Juan de la Rosa (hesitating before trying to score on a wild pitch resulted in an easy out) and Gordon getting badly fooled on a curve low and away kept the damage from being greater.

The next innings brought more of the same: dominance from Azuma combined with poor play by the Unicorns. Leading off the bottom of the second, Adderly Sarmiento and Nick Lehmann were both plunked by pitches, putting two runners on. One out later, Kovac reached on an error by the third-baseman, which scored Sarmiento and sent Lehmann to third. After Kovac stole second, Azuma drove in Lehmann with an RBI ground out. Kovac, who had taken third on Azuma's grounder, scored after the Unicorn pitcher first mishandled a weak grounder by de la Rosa and then (rather embarrassingly) whiffed on the tag attempt (That would be understandable if the runner was someone like, say, Ryan Koley who probably weighs maybe 12-17 kg -all figures approximate- but Juan is a big dude. How you miss HIM running down the line, that I don't know).

In the bottom of the third, Thomas Burger reached on yet another error by the Huenenberg third-baseman, stole second, took third on a passed ball, and then scored on Gordon's RBI single to left. Having made a solemn vow not to live in a world where he had less stolen bases than Gregg Zingg (and for the record, the scorer in the FIRST set of games against the Unicorns screwed me out of a SB), A-DAD took off for second, and ended up at third when the catcher's throw sailed into center-field. An RBI ground-out by Sarmiento brought Gordon home, making it 7-0 Challengers. The Challengers closed out the scoring in the bottom of the 4th on an RBI ground-out by Gordon, scored Nepomuceno from third.

At that point, the only real drama left in the game was whether Azuma would allow a hit. From my vantage point in left-field, it sure seemed as if there had been a single in the top of the 4th, but the play was scored as an error on Sarmiento. Therefore, Azuma entered the 6th inning with a no-hitter intact. With one out, the Huenenberg batter smacked a sharp grounder down the left-field line that was out of the reach of third-baseman Adrian Amoros. In fairness to Adrian, the reason why he couldn't field the ball was because it was a good 2-3 feet foul. Did that stop the home plate umpire from calling it fair? Of course not! As a side note, this otherwise egregious call seemed to be a bit of poetic justice, as the Challengers had benefited from another atrocious fair/foul call in the first game on a ball hit by Sarmiento that was even FURTHER into foul territory than the one in the second game (As an additional side note, the umpire supervisor, while admitting that the first call had been blown, insisted to me afterwards that the second call had been correct. Sure it was, Mr. Supervisor...if by correct you mean that it was COMPLETELY WRONG...but I digress). I won't even bother discussing the play where Koley was called out after getting hit in the hand by a pitch, which involved the umpire insisting that the ball had landed in fair territory in the left-handed batter's box when the ball actually landed in foul territory in the right-handed box...I mean honestly, with that level of ridiculousness you just kind've have to laugh and move on. So the no-hitter was gone, but Azuma still had his shutout. Kovac took over in the 7th and pitched a scoreless frame to close out the victory.

Six games, six wins for the Challengers...but how much of that record is due to having played the Unicorns four times? We shall soon find out...

by Alex Gordon