|
It Helps To Throw Strikes
The third Troy pitcher of the night, Luke Langdon came on in the fourth inning to throw strikes and get the win.
|
|
 |
07/02/09 - Sonny Fulks/1570wptw.com
It was highly anticipated…Troy, 29-4, having won the three previous meetings this summer…and Piqua, having won seven straight, with a 22-7 record and winners of the recent Smokey Mountain Baseball Classic in Tennessee.
But Wednesday’s rematch at Hardman Field, a rescheduled game from an earlier rainout date, turned out to be anything but a classic. Played for the first three innings in a steady drizzle that soaked the field, the baseballs, and the 100-plus that turned out to watch, it turned out to be another wild and woolly Troy-Piqua affair.
In terms of baseball it was a travesty. Troy scored 14 times in the top of the third to take a 17-1 lead, only to see Piqua come back with 8 runs of its own in the bottom of the inning…and from that point it became a laugher.
That is, unless, you were Piqua coach Jim Roberts. Short on pitching to begin with, Roberts saw six Post 184 pitchers walk 21 hitters on the night....8 by volunteer position players Allen Comer and Mark Doran in the ninth inning when Troy added 9 runs to their previous total of 19. And worse, the team that entered the game with 8 error-free games in its previous 29 committed five to help Piqua to an eventual 28-11 win.
“What do you do?” asked Roberts afterwards. “We have four pitchers injured that can’t throw at all. And all the available healthy arms we have couldn’t throw strikes tonight. What did we have…five errors on the scoreboard? That’s generous, because we probably had a dozen if you’re honest.”
On the other side of the field Frosty Brown counted it as little more than an ugly win.
“We knew they were short on pitching and at a big disadvantage,” he said. “But I was really concerned that we let them back into it the way we did. They kept hitting and we made mistakes in the outfield by playing too shallow. The ball's going over our head, and I’m thinking…what are we doing out here?
"Luke (Langdon) is finally healthy and pitched well tonight in relief. He kind of hit the wall when he got to 65 pitches in the eighth, but we had Ryan West ready to come in and finish. Tonight was a situation where he had pitching at the end fo the game, and they didn't."
The wet conditions didn’t help any, but no one on either team could recall a game where one team walked 21 of the opposing hitters…or 26 combined for the game. Here’s some other numbers.
It took 3 hours and 35 minutes to play it.
The two teams combined for 39 runs on just 24 hits.
And it could have been so much worse. Troy left 13 men on base!
“I still believe in my heart that we can come back and beat these guys in the tournament next week,” said a smiling Allen Comer afterwards. “We just have to forget this one and come back and play they way we’ve been playing.”
But that’s assuming a lot for a team that could muster but 10 able bodies for the recent Tennessee tournament, and ran far too short of pitching against the potent Troy attack on Wednesday night…one that featured two doubles and two triples among its 13 hits, and, a home run by catcher Joe Gordon in the 14-run fourth inning.
First, Piqua has to get by Fairborn in the opening round of the next week’s district tourney…Tuesday night at Duke Park in Troy. You can hear that game on WPTW, 6:45 PM airtime. And still, one win over Troy would be nothing more than moral satisfaction. It takes two to win the tourney and advance to the state tournament.
“We have very few options,” said Roberts earlier in the week. “We either beat Troy twice or our season is done.”
|
