2012-366 Day 274 – Softball Game 2

Interesting. I suppose that’s what we’ll go with. It was an interesting game. We only had nine players today since two were at the Dodger game, one is still in Indiana (should be back this week), and one person decided that they had too much on their plate and had to drop out. Fair enough on all accounts. We did have the minimum number of females present to not require an automatic out at the end of the lineup, so we were just down one in the field.

We did have the advantage of turning over our batting order fairly often, and we did so with great gusto in the first inning, scoring 10 runs while sending 14 batters to the plate. The other team countered with four runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning. I’m actually somewhat wary when a team scores a lot of runs in the first inning, it seems that, more often then not, it either a) lets the team take its foot off the gas and they don’t end up scoring very many runs or b) they use up most of their luck in the first inning and don’t score many runs. Either way, they don’t end up scoring many more runs. That wound up being the case for us as three of our innings were of the 1-2-3 variety. We loaded the bases with no outs in the other two innings and actually failed to score in one of them, but we did put four runs across in the other.

Meanwhile the other team chipped away at our lead. They scored four runs in the third inning to bring it to 10-8. At that point I realized we were not being served very well by sticking to a traditional scheme of three outfielders and a second baseman, so I regularly rotated the second baseman out into the outfield and covered the right side of the infield by myself. This worked fairly well for the next couple innings. There was controversy in the bottom of the fourth, as the other team had first and second with one out and their big slugger on deck. The current batter flied out to deep left center and the runner on second ended up on third, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he got to third awfully fast. I wound up with the ball and threw it to the pitcher, asking if the runner had tagged. Everyone said that he had, but my pitcher asked if I wanted him to appeal anyway. I said yes, and upon the pitcher stepping on second and my announcing the appeal, the umpire signaled the out. The other team argued while I lead my team off the field, and the umpire stood by his call (I can’t say for certain it was correct, but again, I had the feeling that the runner arrived at third too quickly).

After scoring our four in the top of the fifth, the big slugger, of course, lead off the bottom of the inning with a home run, taking the score to 14-9. We went 1-2-3 in the top of the sixth, and time was called during the bottom of the sixth, so the home team would complete the final at bats. They managed to roll from the bottom of their lineup to the top, tied the game up at 14 by placing their hits and a walk or two, and had the winning run at third with two outs before we managed to get the final out and preserve at least a tie, 14-14.

Next week will be interesting (although hopefully not in the same way) as we have our only doubleheader for the year, and, due to the vagaries of the reworked schedule, we play the two teams we have already played again. I’m expecting a near full team next week, so we will at least not be at a disadvantage on defense this time.

Weight: 226 Loss: 14 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 304 miles
Softball Stats: Game 2 – 3/4 (.750), 3 R, 1 RBI Season – 6/7 (.857), 2 2B, 5 R, 2 RBI
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1