I have a confession. Before the game, I reached in my back pocket and couldn't find the lucky penny that Jennifer found in the dugout back on Aug. 24. Perhaps it's in my laundry somewhere, but I've got to find it, wherever it is. Because as we proceeded to collapse in hilariously bizarre fashion, all that luck that we've feasted on this season turned on us and bit us back. Owie!
Let's review just how unlucky we got:
We started the night in first place in the Pac-Man Division. We only needed a tie to hold on to first. Then we got beat (by one run) by the previously winless last-place rookie team, and we dropped to third.
Scott hit the Muskies' first-ever homer, which took us a whopping 12 games to attain. But because I had strangely decided to move him back in the order a couple spots, he had no extra RBIs.
We had our best offense since Aug. 24 -- and our worst defense. We owned those Fire Escape kids for five or six innings, going 6-0 up on them before losing 7-6. Their opponents usually score about 6, but they've never scored more than 4 themselves.
I'll say it again: Owie!
The umpires tried to prematurely call the game twice -- which would have given us the win both times. The first time, they called it after seven innings (we led 6-2) but the field monitor ordered an eighth. Then they miscounted the number of outs in the eighth and tried to end it after two outs (we led 6-4). A couple hits later, they walked off with their first win.
Our run differential is slipping. We won our first game by four runs. We won our second by two. We won our third by one. We tied our fourth. We lost our fifth by one.
No single factor contributed to the loss, but as your captain I take full responsibility. We got overconfident in the last few innings and threw the ball wildly around the infield. They bunted us into oblivion and suddenly woke up with some lucky power hits. We did not run the bases alertly enough and left a few runs unscored. And there were about a dozen little defensive miscues that were excusable by themselves, but they combined into a torrential downpour of Fire Escape runs.
Oh well. I still love you guys and I hope you're still okay with me. Third place isn't so bad; we're still contenders for the playoffs, but we'll have to face a harder team in the first round. In fact, you'll be happy to know that we're probably facing our old pals/rivals Ctrl/Alt/Del next Tuesday at 9 p.m.
Some positives:
- Six runs is our best mark since we put up 14 back in the good old days of August.
- Scott gets the Muskies' first homer, for which he wins that Twins playoff ticket I promised. Hooray for Scott!
- Two unassisted double plays by Scott and Scotty, including pitcher Scotty's old pop-up-catch-and-throw-at-the-jumping-runner's-feet routine.
Let's mentally regroup and get them next week!
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