Hunters 11, Challengers 7

One of the things that I tend to find irritating/slightly amusing are columns written about pro teams by sports writers who aren't part of the team, and have never played the game as a professional or at a high level. As someone whose favorite pro teams are all based in NYC (or NJ, for the Giants), I am constantly exposed to the over-wrought vitriol that gushes out every time a New York team loses a game. As one of the team I follow is the Knicks who ONLY lose, there is a lot of vitriol.

Now I've never played baseball as a professional (clearly) or really at that high of a level (how dare you), and I'm not going to spew vitriol, but I am going to complain about how the NLB team - not particular individuals, but the team as a whole - has been playing. Since, unlike the aforementioned writers, I actually play on this team I think I have a certain justification for doing so. The root cause of this frustration is the comparison to how the team played last year, when it dominated the competition during the regular season. That is simply not happening this year despite playing against teams that are arguably worse than those faced in 2014.

To be fair, the team lost two of its best hitters in Carlos Nepomuceno and Renzo Falcone, but even that was not much of an excuse as Carlos PLAYED against Thun and we STILL lost a game (I guess the next best excuse was that Yusuke Azuma missed the first game because he was running some sort of race...in VERY colorful shoes, I might add.)! Anyway, here's what happened in that first game that got under my skin.

The game got off to an odd start: Starting pitcher Oli Christen walked the lead-off batter on 4 pitches, the last one a wild pitch, but catcher Nick Lehmann threw out the runner (same guy) trying to take second. The next batter hit a fly ball to left that Dominic Gisin mistakenly broke in on (only to see it fly over his head), but was also tagged out at second when he over ran the base. In the bottom of the inning, Kurt Kovac led off with a walk, but was then thrown out trying to steal second, which is also highly unusual. The Challengers did score a run when Juan Sosa's fly to left was botched for an error, allowing Adderly Sarmiento to score. So far, so good.

However, the problems started in the bottom of the next inning: Alex Gordon led off with a 4 pitch walk, and, 8 pitches later was joined on the bases by Gregg Zingg and Gisin - that's right, 12 straight balls, 12!! Even Rick Ankiel never did that, at least I don't think. But with the bases loaded, no outs, and a pitcher who couldn't find the strike zone with a laser sight, the Challengers were lucky to get two runs: Consecutive FC's by Christen and Kovac brought Zingg in from third, but cost two outs. The Challengers were then gifted a run when Sarmiento's grounder was mishandled by the shortstop. So yes, we scored 2 runs, that's better than nothing, but man, it really felt like we should've had a lot more. I distinctly recall wondering at the time whether we would regret not having pushed across more runs...here's a spoiler: we did.

The Challengers also failed to cash in on a golden opportunity in the bottom of the fourth, but this time it really wasn't their fault: Christen walked, then took third when Kovac reached on an error. After Kovac stole second, Christen scored on a WP, with Kovac taking third. Sarmniento walked, and stole second, which was all for the Hunters' starter (whose line would have been ugly, had it been entered into Easy Score correctly). That brought up Lehmann who promptly crushed - and I mean crushed...I could hear the ball yelp at contact - a line drive...directly into the glove of the third baseman, who stepped on the bag to double off Kovac. I mean, are you kidding? The Challengers ended up getting one more run when Sarmiento scored on an error, but once again, it really could've been a lot more.

Ok...so it's 6-1 in the top of the 5th...what exactly is my complaint? Well, here it comes: With one out, Christen gave up a walk and an RBI double. The next batter grounded to second, where Sarmiento made a nice play...but then lost his balance and fell down. Ok, that can happen, but then he compounded the problem by throwing the ball past Sosa at first, allowing the batter to reach safely. Sosa retrieved the ball in foul territory and threw to Lehmann at home, getting the lead runner hung up in a run down. Unfortunately, Lehmann fired the ball under the glove of Pedro Martinez (not THAT one) at third, and down the left field line. The run scored and the batter pulled up at third. After an RBI single, a wild pitch and a strike out (which should have been the third out), Christen was touched for an RBI "triple" (and by "triple" I mean a routine fly that was horribly misplayed by the right fielder). By the time the smoke cleared, the lead was down to 1.

Things got a lot worse in the 6th: Two walks and a single loaded the bases with no one out. Christen got the next batter, but a run scored on a passed ball, and then Christen hit two batters and committed a balk (arguably), before giving up a double. One more run scored on an error by Martinez, bringing the tally to 5 runs on 2 hits. After having led the whole game, the Challengers were suddenly down 10-6. It was not a pretty sight.

The C's continued to shoot themselves in the foot in the bottom of the inning, this time by virtue of a mental, rather than physical, error. With a run in, two outs and runners on first and second, Gordon hit a grounder towards that was mishandled by the third baseman, allowing Gordon to reach first...unfortunately, Lehmann, forgetting both how many outs there were and that a force was in play, broke back to second. By the time he took off for third, he was only in time to run right into the fielder's tag. Instead of having the bases loaded, the inning was over, and the Challengers had missed yet another opportunity.The 7th inning brought about another unearned run in the top half (ball that hit the left-fielder in the glove not caught), and another missed opportunity in the bottom half (two on, no outs...no runs), which added up to another almost inexplicable loss for the Challengers, dropping them to 1-4.

Now, please allow me to complain: there is NO FREAKING WAY that this team should be 1-4. NO WAY. With all due respect to the Mustangs, Eagles and Hunters, the Challengers should have not lost more than once in any of their 6 games (the Challengers bounced back to crush Thun 14-4 in the second game behind strong pitching fro Yusuke Azuma - and you know what? I'm not even going to write more than that because we SHOULD be crushing Thun by 10 runs a game!). But they did...4 times, and in every one of those losses, the Challengers coughed up a lead. What the team needs to learn is that the most precious commodity in baseball isn't runs, or Rob Sedin's scraggy beard/hair combo that he's got going on, it's outs. Simply stated, the Challengers are treating this precious commodity like dirt and it is killing them. If Matt Harvey is pitching for you, you can probably afford to toss the opposition an extra out or two along the way. When its Oli Christen pitching, you simply cannot afford to do that. And that's not a knock on Oli - he's pitched MUCH better than his stats might indicate. But the thing about Oli is that he's not a pitcher who can simply shrug off crappy defense and battle through. Much like myself, he gets upset about bad plays, or questionable calls, and then things start to unravel. Christen is a pitcher who can win games for you, but he needs his defense to back him up. That simply did not happen against Thun, and the result was a loss. The same applies on the offensive side of the game, although the batters do deserve a bit of slack here. For example, I seem to be leaving at least 3-4 runners on base per game even though I swear I'm not trying to. But the team has to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented. When the opposing pitcher loads the bases on 12 STRAIGHT BALLS, it's just not enough to score two runs in that inning (and one on an error at that). It would be one thing if the Challengers were getting beat by the old Bern NLB team, but we're losing to the freaking Eagles, and they were in 1st league last year!
Ok, I'm finished now. Next game is against the Hunters in Thun...let's hope we can do better than a split this time.