2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Ducks Sweep Bulldogs: 7-5, 10-1

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Ducks win, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Ducks Pitcher, Mark Guthrie, earned his first victory of the season Saturday going five and a third strong innings, before giving way to James Fago to recorded the 1 and 2/3 inning save.

Matt Johnston had 4 hits to lead the resurgent Ducks’ offense. Stahl and Skovron both hit doubles and had multi-hit games, and there were a lot of singles and walks. Goering drove in a run. 8 Ducks starters recorded hits, and everyone in the lineup reached safely at least once. I wish I could offer more specifics, but i don’t have the book and I was half asleep during the game. We got out to an early lead and held on. The Bulldogs had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the 7th.

James Fago pitched a complete game for the victory in game 2. South Oakland scored 2 in the top of the first. The Bulldogs answered with a run in the bottom half of the inning. The score remained 2-1 until the top of the fifth or sixth, when South Oakland scored six runs. Skovron and Fago walked, Gwin singled to load the bases and Matt Limbach doubled to make the score 4-1. Then Guthrie, Fetter and Goering singled in succession. Garret Moore drove in a run with an rbi ground out. Fago doubled in the top of the seventh and scored on an rbi ground out by Limbach.

The Bulldogs were 10-2 coming into the double header. With the victories, South Oakland raised it’s record to 6-11, and is a half game behind  Monroeville (5-9) and Carrick (6-10) who sit in 8th and 7th place respectively.

After a 1-9 start, the Ducks have won 5 of  7.

quack, quack.

I got an old shirt in the car you can use…

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland jumped out to a 3-0 lead last Sunday against Jefferson Hills, but ran out of pitching. The Ducks fell behind for good after Day Toyota scored 7 in the top of the third and went on to lose 14-3.

Beedle Park is far away.

Big time double header against the second place Bulldogs this Saturday.

Standings as of Wed 6/12:

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Two games separate the sixth and tenth seed right now.

We can definitely sneak in.

 It’s the top 4, a Cranberry team that will lose by ten in the playoffs, and then everyone else.

Lots of underachieving teams.

We have the tie breaker over Brookline and Monroville.

West End might not win in Single A, but having said that, they’ll ten-run us in two weeks.

Friday is buy a Bulldog an eight-ball and a hooker night!

Hopefully we have our infielders this Saturday or it could be a long afternoon.

quack.

Standings, Playoff Push, etc

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland has a tough 3-game stretch coming up in which we play the artists formerly known as Day Toyota, and then a double header against the Bulldogs at John Herb the following weekend.

Standings as of 6/3:

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Upcoming games:

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(click to enlarge or just go to the league site.)

There is some serious separation going on here between the haves and have-nots.

It’s going to be a shit show at the bottom of the bracket. Conceivably we could see the militia, Carrick and pour house drop a few games coming up.

right now, Elliot, Clinton, the Bulldogs and Ashley Shaffer are battling for position in the top four and then it’s everyone else.

Elliot is good.

Cranberry sucks.

that’s my expert analysis.

Unfortunately our team is constructed as such that we can lose 15-1 to teams that suck because we lack pitching depth and infield depth, and sometimes our players don’t show up.

The winable  games we dropped to Carrick, Pour House and Cranberry and the forfeit to the Militia really hurt right now, but at least we’re finally putting up runs and winning games.

We have to steal a couple against teams that are above us in the standings, which is almost everyone.

We might be able to jump in the standings before we play this sunday.

We need all hands on deck Sunday. Jefferson Davis Hills is good. If we have to throw out a patchwork lineup with random single A players we will get embarrassed.

We can give them a game if everyone shows up.

This is most likely the last season of the Ducks as a Double A team, we at least need to make the playoffs and give it one final run.

quack.

Ducks win 2 of 3 over the weekend.

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Ducks win

South Oakland split saturday’s double header with cranberry taking the first game 6-5 in 8 innings, and losing a nail biter in game two after we ran out of pitching and infielders.

On Sunday the Ducks defeated the militia 14-8. The game was close through three and then the Ducks started hitting doubles and getting hit by pitches.

The Ducks have won three of their last four games. James Fago pitched two complete games over that span, and recorded the save in Saturday’s win over Cranberry.

With ten games remaining, South Oakland (4-10)  is one game behind Carrick (4-8) for the last playoff spot.

The Ducks play next vs Jefferson Hills Sunday, 5pm at Beedle Park.

quack.

Ducks Win

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Ducks win, pittsburgh NABA

South Oakland jumped out to an 8-0 lead after three innings, and held off a late Brookline rally to win 9-5.

James Fago pitched a complete game for the much-needed victory, and added an RBI single.

Ducks right fielder Zach Skowvron literally knocked out the Sox starting pitcher with a line drive to the groin area that went for a bases loaded, rbi single in the third.

I hope that guy isn’t pissing blood. it looked like it really hurt.

The Ducks did a good job of stranding Black Sox runners, and getting timely hits.

For the Ducks, Baumgartel hit a triple, Anthony Ciccone was 2-for-3 with two doubles, Stahl 2-for-4 with a double, Gwin was 2-for-4 with a double and 3 rbi, Skowvron was 2-for-3 with a walk. 8 South Oakland starters recorded a hit, and all nine reached base safely at least once.

The above might not be 100% accurate, I don’t have the book, but we hit well.

For the Sox, Kenny Powers and Goldie hit triples.

Florian hustled.

A win against the Black Sox, in Brookline, is always big.

South Oakland has scored 26 runs in its last 3 games and looks to keep the momentum going throughout the weekend.

South Oakland next plays a double header at Cranberry, Saturday, 1pm.

Quack.

Game Day 11, Ducks at Black Sox

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks

at

Brookline Black Sox

9pm

Moore Park

How the mighty have fallen.

kennypowers_B_SOX

These two storied franchises enter tonight’s game at Moore Park with a combined 3 wins between them, in a battle to gain ground on the 8th and final playoff spot.

The Black Sox sit at 2-6 in ninth place, while the 1-9 South Oakland Ducks look to climb out of the cellar with a win.

These games used to be for first place in the division, now we’re fighting for our post-season lives and the season isn’t even halfway gone.

Randy-south-park-302178_388_300

Sox 3rd base coach, Randy, is already getting mentally prepared for the game tonight

We’ve lost in every way imaginable, blown leads, close losses and ten-run drubbings, we’ve hit and not played defense, we’ve played defense and not hit. We’ve forfeited.

We can still make a run at it, but there’s not much margin for error. Luckily there’s a logjam at the bottom of the standings and we still have to play the teams in front of us.

One of the most fun seasons i can remember was 2008. We  had a huge turnover in our roster from 2007, and it took a while for us to come together. TC just took over as manager. We started 3-9, got on a roll and went on to finish 12-10-2 and sneak into the playoffs on the last day of the season.

Tonight is the start of a four game road trip that will determine whether we’ve been underachieving, or if we’re just bad. Maybe we’re just bad. That’s a definite possibility, but i still think there’s enough talent on our team to compete.

Tonight we face an old nemesis in the unfriendly confines of Moore Park and there’s no better place to turn our season around.

 We’ve dug ourselves a hole as deep as the mosquito filled woods behind the visitors bench.

Tonight we start climbing out.

Fago’s on the hill.

fago2

Bad news for the Black Sox

Look at all those Ducks!

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland looks to turn its season around with a stretch of four games in four days starting this Thursday night in Brookline.

Upcoming Schedule:

Thurs 9pm vs. Black Sox at Brookline
Sat 1pm Doubleheader at Cranberry
Sun 12:30pm vs. Militia at Woodland Hills HS

quack

Upcoming Games: May 30th to June 2nd…

2013 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland has a week off before playing four games in four days. Those four games are as follows:

5/30, 9pm at Brookline Black Sox

6/1, 1pm doubleheader at Cranberry

6/2,  12:30pm vs Militia at Woodland Hills

We lost to Cranberry by 1 early in the season, we beat the Militia 3-0, and the Black Sox are currently one up on us in the win column.

The Ducks have a big opportunity to gain some ground in the race for the last playoff spot.

Management is also working on rescheduling a game against West End that was rained out early in the season.

quack.