Dateline: Hook Road 2
On a rare sunny day this season, the Athletics took the field with confidence after their big win over the Mets. With Alyssa on the mound, the Yankees were quickly shut down as she struck out the side. In the bottom of the first it was all A’s as Mathew and Richard walked and Pierce hit a deep shot to center to score two runs. Donny singled, scoring Pierce and the A’s led 3-0 after one.
In the second Alyssa came close but sadly a bunch of Yankees walked and scored on cheap wild pitches. She did get a strike out, but alas the Yankees scored four. The A’s quickly retaliated with two more when Omar and Tommy got on and Mitchell smashed a single. That was all the scoring for the A’s so after two the A’s held a close lead at A’s 5 Yankees 4.
With Drew unavailable for today’s game and the need to groom a third pitcher for the postseason (Little league rules prohibit pitchers from pitching more than six innings in a week and the playoff theoretically could be three games in a week), the A’s management decided to give Will a try on the mound. He threw some nice heat and Will’s first Batter smashed a hit to Center. Will was not rattled and promptly struck out the next batter. Unfortunately, Will had some control problems, but in another first for this rookie pitcher, Will alertly came off the mound to cover home after a wild pitch. Pierce adroitly made the deadly accurate toss and the Will applied the tag was made for out two. Will struck out a batter to end the inning, but three runs had scored. After A few other runners were able to make the steal but Will got out of the inning with a final strike out.
The A’s bats were pretty quiet in the bottom of the third so after three it was Yankees 8 A’s 5.
Will continued in the fourth, but ran into some control problems and the Yanks scored four more. From this point on The A’s bats were hot and cold. Will hit a pop fly, Donny poked one to the pitcher. The A’s bats were quiet in the bottom of the fourth.
In the fifth Matt came on and had some very rare control problems in the 5th. Again the A’s bats were quiet in the bottom of the inning.
The pitching coach gave him Matt a pep talk between innings and he came out throwing smoke in the sixth. After the first batter got a single, the next one hit back to Matt who threw it to Will at first for out number one. The next batter went down swinging for out number 2 and the final batter hit back to Matthew who calmly tossed it to Will for Out number 3 to end the top of the sixth. But the damage was done and the game ended Yankees 15 A’s 5
Coach Goldstein said “I like how we started and how we ended. We just had a couple of rough innings in the middle. I think we’ll be fine on Thursday when we play them again.” Coach Grossman said “Our pitchers were not that happy with themselves today and I wish they’d get over it — none of them is going to have great days all the time — this was just a day when all of our pitchers struggled a little all on the same day. I predict we’ll be very competitive with the Yankees on Friday. The great thing about baseball is that on any given day any team can beat anyone. The worlds record for wins in the major leagues is 116 held by the 2001 Mariners in a 162 game season (for completeness we note that the 1906 Cubs also won 116 in a 154 game season but that was a while ago!) . So even the record holders lose plenty of games — the secret is to forget it after its over keep working on fundamentals and come back ready to play on Thursday! “
