South Oakland was swept out of the 2023 playoffs after losing to Butler and D2, two weeks ago in Spring Hill. The Ducks had a clear lead-off home run by Mark Lombardi ruled foul in the bottom of the first against Butler, and they never recovered. South Oakland went on to lose their opening round game 5-4 after another blown call on a play at the plate. After the tough loss, D2 beat the Ducks 10-0 and South Oakland was eliminated. There would be no miracle run to the finals.

This year’s team suffered two key injuries that we couldn’t overcome. Last year’s starting shortstop hurt his arm in the offseason, and our starting center fielder hurt himself early in the season. Then our new shortstop and our best pitcher were unavailable for the opening round of the playoffs. Overall, we did pretty well with the things we could control this year, and during the second half, we played some really good baseball. We won 9 of 10 to close out the season with a winning record. It was fun down the stretch. We won the season series against everyone but Keystone Oaks and our new nemesis, Butler.

We got a tough draw in the playoffs in that D2 is probably the only team with enough pitching to get through the play-in round and the Bandidos and still have a really good starter for a third game. As usual, they were better than their record indicated. The “We have baseball jerseys at home” Butler Buccos certainly had our number this year for some reason. If they don’t fold, and we manage to beat them, there could be a good rivalry brewing. The atmosphere around games with them is certainly different with all the parents and shit.

Losing early this year wasn’t shocking given the guys we were missing, and the second-round exit in and of itself isn’t heartbreaking, but it makes me more mad about last year’s finals. We had the Eagles on the ropes in that series, and they beat us with illegal players. We took two out of three from them this year without their ringers, and our only loss was a meaningless game for us that they had to win to avoid the play-in game. I guess we should have protested their guys’ eligibility in 2022. That missed opportunity is a little starker after working really hard this year to get better playoff seed only to get bounced while our ace was at the beach. Oh well. Hopefully, we can figure out our defense up the middle in the off season, and make a deep run next year.

Personally, I feel like I still have some years left. I can’t run as well in the second of back to back games, but my (admittedly bloated) stats say I contributed. At 42 years old, I’m still punching above my weight class and leaning into pitches. I think we have a great core of veteran guys who play well together, and we are determined to win one before we all ride off into the slow-pitch softball sunset.

As always, I’m humbled to still have a team and a league to play in. I don’t know what else I’d do during the summer.

Congrats to the Bandidos for a dominant season and a title won without any illegal players. Also, Cranberry had a hell of a run after half their team left in March.

Here’s to next season.

Thanks for reading.

Quack.

Billy Welsh pitched a complete game (W, 4-3) and allowed 0 earned runs, to lead the Ducks past the reigning MVP and the defending champion Eagles (7-13) last night in Spring Hill. Anthony DeFilippo continued his torrid pace at the plate with a 2-run double. Tom Pulice, TJ Morgan, and Jimmy Murray all had RBI for South Oakland. Ducks infielders Kenny Rayl and Mark Lombardi had extra base hits.

The win was South Oakland’s sixth in a row and improved their record to 11-10. The Ducks are above .500 for the first time this season, and hold the tie-breaker over the Eagles with the season series win.

• Billy Welsh has an outside shot at 100 strikeouts this season and deserves Pitcher of the Year consideration.
• Anthony DeFilippo is on pace to win the first batting title in team history and should be in the conversation for league MVP.
• Tom Pulice will always be my Manager of the Year.

South Oakland plays next on Friday, 8:30 pm at Springview Field vs the Devils.

Quack.

South Oakland scored six runs in the first inning and overcame a few errors to win 11-8 last night in Spring Hill. Brandon Blackstone (W, 4-3) pitched six strong innings and Billy Welsh recorded the two-out save after reliever Cody Quinn left the game with an injury.

The resurgent Ducks (10-10) have scored 39 runs in their last 4 games. They have won five straight, and six of seven.

South Oakland plays next on Sunday, 12pm at Herschel Park against the defending champion Eagles.

Quack.

Last night in Spring Hill, Billy Welsh (W, 3-3) pitched a complete game, striking out 14, while allowing only 2 earned runs against the league’s top offense.

In the top of the sixth, South Oakland led 3-2. The Bandidos scored on a play where two errors were committed by the Ducks third baseman who threw a ball out of play after missing a grounder. (Typically this is where we would fall apart, but Billy shut them down, and then we scored a bunch of runs.)

With the score tied at 3 in the seventh, South Oakland scored 5 runs to put the game out of reach. The scoring was capped with a two-run sac fly by Dillon Williams.

Mark Lombardi, Tom Pulice, Anthony DeFilippo, Ben Gwin, and Jesse Iellimo hit doubles for the Ducks. The win was South Oakland’s fourth in a row. The team is now 9-10 on the season. The Bandidos fell to 12-4.

The Ducks play next Thursday night vs the Devils, 8:30 at the Duck Pond.

Quack.

Box Score

The Ducks beat the Warriors in Plum last night, 9-8. South Oakland scored three runs in the top of the seventh to tie, three more in the top of the eighth, and held off a late Warriors rally. Jimmy Murray had three hits, an outfield assist in the seventh, and a game-clinching diving catch.

Brandon Blackstone recorded his first save of the season, and Cody Quinn worked two solid innings in relief.

Tonight is throwback night at the Duck Pond.

8:30pm start vs the first place Bandidos.

Bad News for Bakery Square

South Oakland defeated D2 and Cranberry last weekend to raise their record to 7-10, and move out of last place. The wins gave the team two, key tie-breakers as they won the season series against both teams. The Ducks were then rained out on Monday and Tuesday. After a brutal start to the season, the Ducks have won 4 of their last 6 games.

South Oakland plays next on Monday, July 3, against the Plum Warriors, 7:30 pm at Plum High School.

Quack.

South Oakland is mired in last place again after getting swept by the Butler Buccos (8-5) in Spring Hill last night. It was a horrendously officiated contest that featured multiple player ejections. I think the final was 9-3.

Butler had our number this year.

It looks bleak right now, but if we can get out of the 8/9 play-in game there’s not much difference between finishing second or seventh. We’re in a log jam of teams with 5 or 6 wins, and we play Plum (5-10), Cranberry (6-7), and D2 (6-8) in the next week, and we have two games left vs the 6-9 Eagles. So there’s still hope we can move up and figure it out before the playoffs. We will be a tough out if we can finish somewhere in the 5-7 range. Maybe one of these teams won’t pay their dues and we will get lucky and there won’t be an 8-9 game. It’s definitely possible.

Also, the way the league home page sorts the standings by points is annoying.

South Oakland plays next vs D2, Thursday night, 8:30pm at Springview Field.

Quack.

We are 2-5 in one run games, and lost another in extra innings. Our run differential is -3. The other 4-9 team, Plum, has a run differential of -58. I’ve played on bad teams before and this team doesn’t feel like it should be this bad. We have too much pitching. All our games are really close. But we are finding ways to lose. We’re making stupid mistakes, untimely errors, and aren’t making productive outs when we need them. Our shortstop got hurt during the offseason, and we haven’t found an answer.

We had bases loaded with zero outs today, and didn’t score. The runner on third got a terrible jump on a hard hit grounder to short, and was thrown out at home. The next batter K’d after fake-bunting for some reason, and then we had a runner picked of second on a spin move with a full count with one of our best hitters up.

We’ve had runners thrown out at home in the last inning when we were trailing by five only to eventually have the tying run at the plate with two outs. We’ve had bad calls go against us, but so has everyone. We have been stupid aggressive in situations when we need to be smart, and passive when we need to try to force the issue or make a play on defense. We don’t get bunts down. We don’t steal enough, but then we try to steal third with nobody out and get caught, or try to go first to third and get thrown out. These things keep happening and they continue to decide games for us. I guess this is who we are now.

These are mistakes that don’t happen much in general, but when they have happened they’ve killed us. Those are the things we can control. It’s really wild. Some of it is luck. We’re playing like 80% great baseball, but instead of just shitting the bed in 20% of our games, we’re fucking up 20% of all our games and losing by very little, very often.

What sucks is that we are getting great starting pitching, and good hitting. But we can’t get out of our own way. Our record has overshadowed some great individual performances.

We have eleven games left, and our goal should be to stay out of the 9 vs 8 play-in game. This is an attainable goal, especially for a team with our staff. I’m optimistic we can get it figured out and make another deep run, but it feels like were just fucking stuck right now.

The Ducks next game is Tuesday at home at 8:30 vs the Devils.

South Oakland dropped back to back games this week to Bakery Square and Butler by a combined score of 21-11. The losses were due to poor defense and attendance issues. The Ducks (3-6) look to rebound Thursday evening with a happy hour tilt at Keystone Oaks, 6:15 in Greentree.