South Oakland looks to avenge last week’s horrific 15 run loss to Elliot tonight at the Duck Pond.
The game after Elliot beat us by 15 they lost 14-3 to the Bulldogs. No word on if the Bulldogs considered the game a disgrace to baseball.
We’ll have better pitching tonight.
If the thunderstorms hold off.
Bad News for Elliot.
Kenny Powers and the Black Sox (1-5) beat the Cherokee (4-3) Saturday night by a score of 1 – 0.
South Oakland (6-1) has a 2-game lead in the division with five to play.
Dr. Radical for Life.
quack.
South Oakland of the North Side beat the Clinton Cherokee 12 – 7 Monday night to take first place in the Monongahela Division.
I wonder what was discussed in the huddles over there? the pre-game talk, two (I think) during the game, and the post-game speech by Clinton’s manager. Probably either the hollow, “we can’t take this team lightly.” Even though it was clear we were taken lightly, or “There’s no way we should lose to this team, they’re horrible. Look at our pants and look at their pants the don’t all match. I love our uniforms they are so sick!”
Or not. I mean, i could be way off base, but whatever their coach was trying to get accross it didn’t take.
Immediately the game had a weird feel to it.The city actualy fixed the lights and dragged the field.
Ducks catcher Ken Cool threw out a runner to end the first. Clinton led 1-0.
In the bottom of the first, Ducks firstbaseman Bobby Swartwout hit a two-run home run and South Oakland wouldn’t trail for the rest of the game.
The Baumgartel/Fago duel started with Baum almost Baconating one to right center, but Roberts made a tough catch at the track.
We scored a run in the second.
Fago picked off a guy at first.
Jesse Ferko and TJ Morgan started hitting doubles.
We had the bases loaded with 1 out in the third, and got one run across.
after three: Ducks 4, Clinton 1.
Then we scored five in the fourth.
Morgan led off with a double Ferko walked, and Roberts bunted for a baseh hit.
Doyle was pulled.
It gets blurry for me at this point. This game was the best the offense has looked all season.
Tessyier came into the game on short rest.
Casale and Houseman came through with back to back singles.
Ken Cool lined out to the wall in left, Gwin flew out to right and Swartwout drove in another run with, I think, a double.
9 – 1, Ducks after four.
the game was stopped to acknowledge Morgan’s first three-hit game as a Duck.
Clinton scored four in the top of the fifth. Baumgartel walked, I threw a ball backwards, there were a couple walks, but we worked out of it. Lead preserved.
9-5, Ducks through four-and-a-half.
In the bottom of the fifth Gwin lead off with a double, Swartwout reached on an error when Gwin was caught in a rundown and pegged in the back. Fago reached on an error. Jesse Ferko hit a bases clearing triple.
South Oakland led 12-5 after five. Fago retired the side in order in the sixth getting Baumgartel to groundout to end their individual battle for the evening.
They put some other kid in to pitch the sixth, he was effective.
The Cherokee scored two in the seventh but the Ducks held on for a five run victory.
***
From what Ken Cool tells me, the Cherokee coach still gives us no credit for putting 12 runs across in this game, and taking advantage of the numerous, uncharacteristic Clinton miscues.
They may not have given us their best, but that has nothing to do with us.
I don’t have the book, but I think six Ducks starters had multiple hits in this game, Ferko, Morgan and Houseman each had 3.
We have three non-division games before we play the Black Sox on the 23rd.
***
Despite a 9 – 3 overall record, Clinton is half a game back in the division race. First place is on the line.
This game is so important Ken Cool’s brother rescheduled the Cherokee calendar shoot so the team could take extra bp.
We’re down a few key players, but the Cherokee have played fifteen games in the last three days so that’s a wash.
I don’t think they’ll bat 12 tonight.
We need someone to step up.
Elliot (9-2, 4-0) is separating itself from the rest of the Allegheny Division and has the best record in the league. The Ducks are looking to avenge an opening day 7-1 loss to Elliot.
This league has a very high percentage of teams not ending in ‘s.’ – elliot, militia, cranberry, black sox, cherokee. Five out of eight in the AA division. However, in the A division all of the teams do in fact end in ‘s.’ interesting. The Chris Wojton-led Devils won 24 to 9 over the weekend. That game couldn’t have been fun for anyone, certainly not the umpires. I can’t imagine how big the strike zone must have been in the fourth or fifth inning.
The Black Sox dropped three straight to Ken Cool’s brother’s team this weekend (with a ruling on a rain-shortened game pending).
It’s like someone died in Brookline.
I don’t think anyone would have thought Cranberry and the Black Sox would be battling it out for a playoff spot.
There’s a lot of baseball left, but at 5-1 halfway through our divisional schedule the Ducks are in a good spot.
We’ve had different guys come up big in key situations, and the pitching has improved greatly.
We still haven’t played our best baseball yet.
South Oakland and Elliot both have division games coming up on Wed. We’ll see how this plays out tonight.
Bad News for Elliot
Ducks pitcher Robert Patton (2-0) earned his second straight victory, allowing 1 ER over five innings, to lead South Oakland of the North Side (5-1, 6-5-2) past Cranberry (1-3, 4-8) Saturday afternoon.
Cranberry scored a run early with a two out rally in the bottom of the first on a walk and two singles. South Oakland took the lead in the third when with two out, Guthrie singled, Ken Cool was hit by a pitch, and a past ball moved the runners to second and third. Gwin singled in Ken Cool and Guthrie to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead.
In the fifth, South Oakland scored two more runs on an almost identical series of events. Guthrie walked with two outs. Ken Cool singled and Guthrie advance to third. Ken Cool stole second and Gwin singled in Guthrie and Ken Cool to put the Ducks up 4-1.
Cranberry made it interesting with 2 unearned runs in the bottom of the fifth, the inning ended when Fago threw out a guy trying to steal second.
In the sixth, with runners on first and second and no body out, Ducks first baseman Bobby Swartwout threw out a Cranberry runner at third on a botched sacrifice attempt, then made a nice over the shoulder catch on a pop-up and doubled off the guy at first to end the inning.
Cranberry stranded runners on second and third to end the game.
Ducks outfielder TJ Morgan went 3-for-3 on the day.
***
Earlier in the year we were letting leads slip away into ties, and ridiculous 11-10 losses. It’s good to hold on and win tight games.
Yesterday the Black Sox dropped both games to Clinton, and fell to 0-4 in the division, with another game against the 3-1 Cherokee today at 3pm.
With the Black Sox at 0-4, and Cranberry at 1-3 and those two teams still facing each other three more times, we’ve almost clinched a playoff spot.
I’m really surprised to see Kenny Powers and Brookline in last place.
South Oakland plays Elliot Monday night at 9pm before a huge game against the Cherokee Wednesday night at home with first place on the line.
quackquackquack.
Bobby Swartwout (sp) drove in three runs, going 3-for-3 with two doubles and a single off the wall to lead South Oakland (4-1, 5-5-2) past Cranberry Wednesday night. Ducks pitcher James Fago allowed one unearned run over six innings, holding Cranberry to 3 hits and recording an estimated 9 Ks. I have now gone from spelling out numbers to writing them as numerals.
Cranberry scored their run early on a walk, a hit batter, a past ball and an error in some order.
The Ducks tied the game in the third when Ken Cool doubled and scored from second on an infield hit by Gwin who reached third on a double by our new utility infielder. Fago walked and scored on Swartwout’s bases clearing double.
South Oakland added another run on a sac fly by centerfielder TJ Morgan.
I don’t know where we’d be without Morgan this season, and I’m at a complete loss as to how we scored our other run. I think a groundout.
Robert Patton pitched a perfect seventh to preserve the victory.
There are still players on our team who haven’t met each other. There are at least four guys whose names i don’t know, and may never know, but after a brutal start that included a 17 – 1 loss to the Bulldogs, we’re playing better baseball.
We have another important division game against Cranberry Saturday 2pm, at North Boundary Park.
Quack.
It looks like the league this year is incredibly balanced. That, combined with the meaninglessness of the non-division games, has lead to a lot of decent but not spectacular records.
Cranberry beat the Black Sox last weekend making our division race much tighter, and the games this week even more important.
The Cherokee play the Black Sox in what looks like a home and home double header on Saturday 3:30 in the twilight zone and 9pm at Moore Park. Wild scheduling – Kenny Powers does not want to fall to 0 – 4 in divisional play, and Ken Cool’s brother definitely wants the Cherokee to bury Brookline. I guess it’s in our best interest to root for a split there. I don’t know.
There will be intense baseball down the stretch for sure.
Thank god we won’t have to go back to Findlay in the regular season. The field is fine, but the lack of shade makes me dizzy thinking about it.
Two Big games this week vs Cranberry: Wed, 9pm at SpringView, and Saturday, 2pm at North Boundary Park. We’ve got a chance to get over .500 overall and go to 5 -1 in the division.
quack.
Big time 4-3 win in game 2.
Maybe more on this one later. I think i have sun poisoning.
quack.
South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (2-0, 3-4-3)
at
Clinton Cherokee (0-0, 5-2)
1pm and 3:30pm
Middle of Nowhere (seriously, according to this yahoo maps link, we’re playing in a parallel dimension)
In this alternate universe, all teams want pictures like this taken of their summer league teams.
They look like they mean business – and check out the sick piping!
This is probably just some art students’ school project, but whatever.
If Ken Cool’s brother had stuck around we might have Ducks pics like this: I’d want a silhouette of Guth holding up that cigar on top of the Cool’s picnic table right before he blacked out and fell on the driveway after we won the championship, imposed in front of Dan Marino field in Oakland with a drug deal taking place in the background and some little kids playing with a broken 40 bottle.
Sadly, me and Fago’s inability to provide our team with posters of ourselves led to the loss of some quality players.
Our pitching situation is gonna be touch and go, but we should have most of our lineup.
Bad News for the Cherokee.
South Oakland Ducks Baseball 