Brandon Culp and Anthony Ciccone each hit a grand slam, a double, and popped out via the infield fly rule.
Starting pitcher TC Jones allowed 2 runs over 4 innings for the win. He surrendered 0 grand slams.
The win puts South Oakland (5-2) in first place. Half a game in front of the WOLFPACK!!! (4-2) and Bombers (3-1).
We’re off until the 19th as of now, but that could change.
Full recap to follow.
Ducks starter Brian Strom (w, 2-1) scattered 8 hits, walking 3 and beaning 4 batters over six strong innings of 2-run ball Sunday night in Moore Park, helping South Oakland (4-2) diffuse the Allegheny offense en route to an 8-2 Ducks victory.
Playing without the strong-bearded veteran leadership of the Commish, the Bombers (3-1) looked flustered out of the gate.
This guy took the hill for Allegheny*.
He allowed back to back doubles to Gwin and Culp and the Ducks jumped out to an early 1-0 lead. Culp stole third, Strom drew a walk. Matt Swetz collected his unofficial, team-leading 7th RBI of the season with a single to right.
one at a time. sometimes two at a time
Sorosky, formerly of the militia has been waiting for a chance to take out the Bombers for three years. He delivered a single to left to put the Ducks up 3-0.
Garrett Moore drove in a run with a single up the middle. 4-0 Ducks.
This is the best exclaimer image I could find.
With one out and runners on first and second, Alex Riley hit a ground ball to the shortstop who got the force at second. Moore sacrificed his pants with a hard slide and forced an arrant throw. Sorosky tried to score from second on the play, but the ball bounced hard off the wall behind first and came right back to the first baseman who blew up Sorosky at the plate. Classic 6-4-3-2 Double play.
Who’s laughing now? Those communion pants were durable.
Strom faced 5 batters in the first and stranded runners on second and third after striking out some guy to end the inning.
The Bombers scored 2 in the second, but Strom pitched out of another jam and the Bombers left the bases loaded.
The Bombers third baseman can hit a little.
Meanwhile, the Bombers pitcher had settled in and was in the process of retiring 9 straight Ducks with the help of a 4-6-3 double play. Judging by the Allegheny reaction, it was the first good play their infield ever made.
Fetter singled to lead off the fifth. He actually defused bombs in the military. After a Casale sac bunt, Gwin singled in pinch runner Shawn Dorsek to make the score 5-2 in the fifth.
In the bottom of the fifth, Strom allowed a triple a walk and struck out the side. The Bombers could not get a big hit.
In the bottom of the sixth, with Bombers on first and second, Tony Casale made a sick diving play in the hole between third and short to get the force at third. Best play by a shortstop made in the game. Two groundouts later, the Bombers again left two men on base with nothing to show for it.
In the top of the seventh, The Ducks scored three runs on five hits to put it out of reach. Strom, Sorosky and Moore had RBI.
Fetter pitched the bottom of the 7th and struck out the Bomber’s 3rd baseman looking, then induced a double play to end the game.
***
South Oakland’s next game is Wednsday night 8pm at Springview Field vs. the Senators.
quack.
Garrett Moore’s pants went 2-for-4 with 3rbi to lead the shorthanded South Oakland Ducks (4-2) to an 8-2 win over the Allegheny Bombers (3-1).
The schedule is up on the league site.
South Oakland plays next Wednsday night 8pm at Springview Field
Full recap to follow.
quack
The Monsters (3-0) scored a run in the first on a misplayed fly ball, three unearned runs in the second, and another in the third. Monongahela lead 5-0 forever. They threw some sidearm guy and the ump had a huge zone, benefitting both pitchers. It felt like the Monsters had runners on base all game. They didn’t exactly ‘mash’ but a couple of them hit doubles and they had a consistent lineup.
Mostly they put it in play and we kicked it around. None of their errors cost them runs. Not our best night. I look forward to playing them again.
Twice the Ducks (3-1) had runners on second and third with one out, and couldn’t get a key hit. With one out in the third, Mike Brandt was hit by a pitch then Garrett Moore had a sweet double to left center, but was doubled off on Casale’s line out to right, ending the threat. South Oakland scored a run in the sixth on a Casale walk and stolen base followed by two ground outs.
I like that team, because their coach already entered the score in the website. Probably took him less than a minute. What happened in the Lions/Titans doubleheader on the 13th? No one knows because the scores haven’t been entered, and so we don’t know the standings. Great.
South Oakland plays next on Sunday night against the Wolfpack, 8:30pm at John Herb Field.
quack.
South Oakland improved to 2-0 on the season with a 6-4 win over North America.
The Ducks scored 3 in the bottom of the first. Casale and Gwin Singled to start the game putting runners on first and third with no outs. Casale scored on a double steal. Culp singled in Gwin, and advanced to third when Swetz singled to right. Ben Hartranft scored Culp with a sac fly to center.
The Lions scored an unearned run in the top of the second. Ben Hartranft threw out a guy at the plate.
The Lions ran into some outs. Runners on first and second, there was a past ball and only the runner on first tried to advance and the Ducks got an out on a 2-5-4 putout.
With a runner on second in the third, a ground ball to the left side resulted in a 5-6 putout.
After taking a 4-3 lead in the fifth after a dropped fly ball by the Ducks, North America had runners on first and third with 2 outs and tried to get in a rundown between first and second to allow the runner on third to score but it didn’t work.
Some guy tried to stretch a single and was thrown out at second.
North America threw two good pitchers, and the starter settled in after a rough first innings. South Oakland trailed 4-3 going into the bottom of the fifth.
Faust singled to start the fifth, and took second on a past ball. After a pair of strikeouts, Gwin walked. Then the Lions pitcher went from the windup for some reason, allowing Gwin and Faust to advance. Ciccone drove in 2 with a single to right. Then Culp chased their starter with a double off the wall in right center.
The Lions would only reach base once in the sixth and seventh. Ciccone struck out their 2-hitter to end the game.
Some stats:
2-for-3, 2RBI, R, 5IP, 3H, 2BB, 4K, 2R 0ERNotes:
South Oakland plays next on Saturday at 12pm up at Pie Traynor. Might be scrambling for guys over Easter Weekend.
Follow us on twitter @duckpond2014
quack, quack.
South Oakland opens at home tonight against the North American Lions. After a 9-4 win over the Wolfpack, the Ducks look to start a winning streak in what will probably be wet conditions.
Follow Michael Brandt @Duckpond2014 for in-game updates while you watch the Pens.
The Lions finished 14-9 last year. I have no idea what to expect, but I love how they claim a whole continent. It’s North America’s first game so we’ll probably face their ace.
Dr. Jones will get some innings on the mound tonight.
Bad News for the Lions
South Oakland won it’s first game of the season defeating the West View Wolfpack 9-5.
Tony Casale went 4-for-4. Brandon Culp went 3-for-4 with a double and four RBI. Matt Swetz hit a sweet double over some kid’s head. Jason Fetter pitched four innings allowing 1 earned run. Brian Strom allowed 1 run over three strong relief innings. Ducks pitchers combined to strike out nine wolfpacks, nine wolves? nine wolfpack? Whatever. I think West View only had four hits, depending how loose their book is.
We made fewer mistakes than they did, and looked pretty good all things considered. We’re going to score a lot of runs this season.
West View is a basically the old Matadors/Sharks. I don’t know how they scammed their way into that 8:30 John Herb time slot.
The game ended on a dropped third strike with the bases loaded. After the strike out, the Ducks catcher, Anthony Ciccone, picked up the ball and stepped on the plate, to end the game, but the Wolfpack batter ran to first for some reason and tried to run over our first baseman. Nice.
South Oakland plays next on Wednesday, 8pm at Springview Field.
Mike Brandt is going to live tweet the first few inning of the game before he leaves for work. I’m expecting great things. Also, we’ll have our uniforms.
Quack.
Fuck this winter.
It looks like TJ Morgan is running the AA Ducks, and I’m running the single A Ducks. I’m still trying to find a loophole to allow me to play on both teams, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
The split should’ve happened in 2010, but no one on that team was going to step down and play in a lower division. Instead, a bunch of guys quit rather than take reduced roles. And, really, who wants a reduced role in a fucking summer league? No one. I strained some friendships over that mess, and I probably deserve it. Maybe I shouldn’t give as much of a shit four years later, but I’m obsessed with narrative–the story in this mess, and without conflict there’s no story. So I think about it.
This weather is making me sound depressed. Here’s a photoshop to lighten things up. Some of my best work!
The A Ducks are shaping up pretty well. We have a bunch of guys from the Militia, and a few ghosts of South Oakland past returning. I think it’ll be fun. We will be competitive. If the pitching holds up, we should contend with the other sandbagging teams for a title. I think those are realistic expectations.
Morgan’s Ducks, will be nasty this year, too, if the pitching holds up. The Fightin’ Ducks, is what it looks like since everyone still has Ducks jerseys. Morgan does things the right way, and helped the franchise through a rough patch last season that saw a near folding of the team, and a collapse down the stretch and a ton of games in the middle of nowhere. It sucks to run a team without a pitching staff, and guys who won’t commit.
Teams that left in the offseason: The Militia. Elliot. Maybe one other one. This will be the Ducks 12th season.
If it wasn’t for Elliot, we could conceivably have won two or three titles in the last four years. We’d have won in ’11 maybe ’12. What would have been awesome, is if we played the Cherokee in the finals or semis two years ago. But this is some space time continuum shit. Whatever. Elliot made the league better. Not upset I don’t have to face Barnes again. They beat us 20-3 one game, the year where only divisional games counted towards our record so we punted that one and got slaughtered.
The Militia broke up, the team that was the Orioles, Knights, Gray Bats, and Rebels who left the Black Sox who were the Stampeders.
With Monroeville disbanded, who will defend the league?
Not Captain America.
Guthrie retired. The last holdover from the TC Jones era, Guth beat the Black Sox to win our most recent championship. Guth went 6 1/3 innings on the mound in a 5-3 win in the clinching game then blacked out and split his chin open that night celebrating. Blood and cheap whiskey everywhere. That’s always how it ends.
Goodnight Captain.
Quack.
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.
Cherokee starting pitcher Jim Tessyier threw complete game, one-hit shutout in game one, allowing only 2 base runners. Clinton scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 5th to ten-run the Ducks.
South Oakland dropped a frustrating game two by a score of 8-5, and the team’s record now stands at 1-4.
During the game, Clinton’s manager’s back windshield was smashed out by a foul ball.
Despite the loss, the Ducks remain optimistic the team can put it together in time for a run at the playoffs.
We’ve got the pieces, we just need to keep grinding it out and the wins will come.
South Oakland plays next vs. the Bulldogs (2-1), Monday night 9pm at Springview Field.
quack.
South Oakland Ducks Baseball 