Renovators (9-1) Hold on Against Ron Paul: 13-7
July 23rd, 2008The Renovators jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the first inning and never looked back, beating the Ron Paul team 13-7 to win their 9th game of the year.
Well, okay, we looked back a bit. Especially, if you do the math, we lost innings 2-7 by a score of 7-5. A win is a win, don’t get me wrong, and part of the game is getting off to a good start which we did. But the idea that we slowed down after the big lead is troublesome-especially since we play them again today (weather permitting). It might just be that we slowed down and that come today we can turn it back on-it could also be that we were getting figured out again.
The encouraging thing is that no one gave up. We had a bad second inning and everyone hunkered down and played harder. Everyone also played excellent base coverage (running from second to first when the first baseman had to pull off on a ball) and made some fairly solid throws. Tom, the Redheaded Righty, once again pitched four solid innings (getting a little beat up in the second-but most of those were unearned runs) and Dusty hit two bombs. Sally continued great play at first base doing the leaping catch to make an out Germal had a great play where he back me up at shortstop. One of our Dave’s who plays shortstop had his usual awesome game AND he loaned me a left handed glove, so special props to him.
Personally I had a good game with one stupid play. 2-2 with 2RBIs and a run scored (which felt great after the 0-2 last week), but on my second hit I tried to stretch a single into a double and got tagged out. I thought they were throwing the ball to third or home already (to get the lead runner) and so I took off. Not an excuse as my base coach said not to run-and I shouldn’t have. Thankfully I got to pitch right away and so I got my mind off the bonehead play (I cost my self and RBI, the team a run and another Dave an R on that play too-all while ending the inning. YEESH).
3 IP, 5H, 2 Earned Runs scored and only one double-not bad against a decent hitting team. I did bet a power hitter out with a little inside/outside getting him to pop up at a stupid pitch (he even came over to me and said “hey good work”) plus I’ve been working on my new “side-spin” super-pitch. Both batters who made contact with it popped right up to third base-worked like a charm 
Notes: This is the 4th game in a row we’ve kept a team under ten, and 5 out of the last 6. It also marks our lowest run total of the year with just 13. Two shut out innings, three one run innings and one four run inning means a fairly decent defensive game. Lots of flubs in the one inning we gave up four runs all of which were hammered down for the rest of the game.
Tonight we play at 6:30 on the Wash Monument field-weather permitting. Retro “hands on dc” shirt night since all of our stuff stinks to high heaven after yesterday’s heat-wave game. Updated stats after the break.
