The last time we played the Pirates we were pulling guys off the street to play, and we still put up 10 runs before an epic collapse in the top of the seventh in which Pour House scored nine unanswered and went on to beat us 14-10.
It would be nice if West End got nine together on Friday to at least force Pour House to use up some pitching. They play three games in four days and are one game ahead of us in the standings. This weekend is huge for playoff implications as we get down to the wire. We have almost all our starters available Saturday morning, so we don’t have any excuses if we can’t hold them under 14 runs.
South Oakland (7-12) played with 8 players for five innings and still beat Carrick 4-3 at Beedle Park in Western Maryland on June 23rd.
Fago has won like 5 straight decisions on the mound, and leads the team in wins and saves.
South Oakland lost 6-0 to the Cleveland Indians on Sunday in a rain-shortened affair.
[Standings as of Monday, July 1st]
The Black Sox have picked it up, going from 10th to 7th over the last couple weeks.
Everyone else is falling back to the pack.
The Ducks have two games to reschedule vs. West End, Pour House this Saturday, then finish with Elliot and Brookline on the season’s final weekend.
After looking at the schedules of the rest of the teams outside the top 4, basically, we control our own destiny since the other 5-10 teams will beat up on each other.
I said at one point we needed ten wins to make it in, and i think that should still do it.
After a 1-9 start we could conceivably finish as high as fifth, but we have to keep winning. Pending rescheduled games, South Oakland plays Brookline on the last day of the regular season.
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.
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.
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.
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.
South Oakland (1-7) lost an 9-7 heartbreaker to defending champion Elliot (3-1-1) Wednesday night in Spring Hill.
Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the first the Ducks broke out of their season long slump and put four runs across to take an early lead. Fago doubled in Gwin and Owens, Ciccone drove in Fago, and scored on a single by Ferko, I think.
Elliot answered with a six-run second, and added a run in the fourth.
South Oakland chipped away scoring one run in the third, fourth and fifth, and trailed 8-7 going into the bottom of the sixth when the Ducks had runners on second and third with no outs and couldn’t get a run across. Elliot’s relief pitcher struck out the side after a walk and a hit and a wild pitch started the inning.
Elliot added a run in the top of the seventh.
South Oakland had the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the seventh.
The Ducks next game is saturday at 5pm against the Militia at Beedle Park.
This was a tough one. We played a real good team close, but came up short.
We’re playing better, but we’re running out of time to get wins.
We have to go at least 10-6 in our last sixteen games at this point.
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.
At least it’s not the middle of July and a million degrees out.
Really, it’s just great that the heritage of a Native American tribe from the Southeastern United States is being represented by an amateur baseball team that plays by the Pittsburgh International Airport.
Clinton lost to the Bulldogs earlier this year. Allegedly, after the victory, a prominent member of the Bulldogs made a bunch of subversively racist jokes and dated porn references directed at the Clinton fans and then took a shit in the Cherokee dugout.
“This may cause us to lose a field permit, but was well worth it,” said an anonymous Bulldog who witnessed the post game shit while raking the third base line. “You should have seen their coach whining about it. What a douche bag. Just play baseball and you won’t get shit in your dugout. The piping on those unis is pretty great, though.”
Clinton players were not permitted to speak to the press following the game, but were seen sunning wind sprints in the outfield while their coach cut himself in the bullpen.
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South Oakland is coming off a shutout victory over the Militia, and is looking to keep up the momentum after a three hour drive down to Findlay.
Both teams will be missing a few starters.
Clinton is always tough on paper.
Last year the Ducks split the season series with the Cherokee.
If we have our best nine, we can play with anyone.
The Duck Pond is retired. The South Oakland Ducks of the North Side will not have a home field this season. I’ll miss it, but not really. bad hops on that field allowed me to hit over .400 for six of the last seven seasons and Spring View was host to some of the most dominating pitching performances in Ducks history. Hopefully i’ll have time to give it a proper send off at some point. I’m sure we’ll get a random rainout game scheduled there. the Ducks can’t thank the league enough for working with us to help keep the team swimming, and allow me to reuse all the sweet Baconator photoshops from a couple years ago. The Black Sox almost became the team to beat this season…
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The TJ Morgan lead-South Oakland Ducks will open the season this Saturday 4/13
South Oakland Ducks Baseball 