Saturday, November 15, 2008

2008 Gunners Baseball Tournament #6 Day 1

After a late night last night at the Kings game, this was a long day for both Jack and I. The Gunners drew the first two games of the day at Big League Dreams Sport Park in Manteca: an 8:00 a.m. game and a 10:10 a.m. game. I got Jack up about 5:45 a.m. and we left the house about 6:15 a.m. This team has never played very well first thing in the morning.

They played the first game against Cen Cal, a team that they have beat twice in the last couple of months. They got off to a bad start. Their pitcher walked five batters in the top of the first inning and gave up 4 runs. The boys started to hang their heads and things spiraled downward from there.

Cen Cal had picked up a new pitcher who struck out 6 of the 10 batters first time through the order. Jack got up in the bottom of the third. He fell behind 0 balls and 2 strikes and then worked the count to 3 balls and 2 strikes, including fouling off a pitch. Jack ended up striking out swinging on a low pitch that might have been called a ball.

The Gunners managed only three hits in the game and ended up losing the game by a score 8 to 0 in five innings. Jack played four uneventful innings in right field.

The second game was against TABU, a team the Gunners barely beat a couple of weeks ago. Like the first game, the Gunners gave up four runs in the top of the first inning on two walks and a couple of singles.

In their half of the first, the Gunners manufactured 3 runs on 2 walks, a hit by pitch and a single. These were the only runs the Gunners could manage, while TABU scored in four of the five innings.

In Jack's first plate appearance in the second inning, he hit a 2 balls and 1 strike pitch to the third baseman and was thrown out at first. Jack's second at-bat was an eight pitch affair. He ended up driving one hard down the third base line for a single. With one out, he stole second and third, but the Gunners left him at third.

Jack played five innings at third base. He handled a routine grounder in the first inning and threw the runner out at first. In the fifth inning, Jack tagged out the runner trying to go from second to third on a nice throw from the pitcher.

The Gunners managed only four hits in the game and ended up losing the game by a score of 10 to 3.

With two losses, the Gunners were seeded fourth out of five teams for the elimination round of the tournament. Unfortunately, the first game of elimination round was at 6:50 p.m. on Saturday night. We ended up going home and coming back.

The Gunners played the Bay Bombers in the third game of the day.

Leading 1 to 0 in the bottom of the second, Jack came up with the bases loaded and one out. He drove a 1 ball and 0 strike pitch up the middle for a double and two RBIs. He stole third, but the Gunners left him at third.

The Gunners ended up winning the game by a score of 6 to 2 in 6 innings. Jack played three uneventful innings in right field. Continuing the trend of the day, the Gunners managed only four hits in the game. Two of the hits were by Pat who showed up only for the last game. Over the course of the three games, the Gunners managed only 10 hits and Jack had 2 of them.

With the win, the Gunners get to come back on Sunday to play the #1 seed.

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