My old guy's baseball season came to a close yesterday and in humiliating fashion. The Bears beat up the Orioles 14-0 in the first round of the playoffs.
You go into every game expecting to win but when I saw the Bears pitcher I knew we were in trouble. He threw hard. The hardest throwing pitcher in the league. I know how we hit. Several guys on our team can't hit batting practice speed pitches so I knew we were cooked.
Plus our starting pitcher showed up 5 minutes before game time, gave up 4 first inning runs...beginning with a 4-pitch lead off walk. Then he got thrown out of the game in the top of the 2nd for squawking with the umpire. He should have gotten a warning but he also should have piped down.
The bad thing about him getting run is that every time his spot came up in the batting order, it was an automatic out which led to a potential strange situation.
In our Over 35 league, there is a 10-run mercy rule after 7 innings. In the top of the 7th, we had our first two batters make outs. That brought up Mike Zuffoletto. He was going to be the last batter no matter what because the automatic out spot was up next. This meant if Mike hit a home run the game would have ended. We would have hit a walk off homer...and lost. He struck out.
It was a dissapointing way to end the season. Not that we lost but we didn't play well. It doesn't help when your starting pitcher shows up late, gets racked, thrown out, spends the next few innings in the stands drinking beer then leaving before the game ends. Classy. It wasn't the first time he showed up late either. This isn't the big leagues but it's all we have. It would be nice if he showed the same interest and dedication as the rest of the team.
Hopefully next year ends in better fashion. Changes though need to be made.
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