By Josh Manley
Lima - Long
before the Hamilton Joes were even a twinkling in Coach Darrel Grissom’s eye,
or Mike Brennan’s, the baseball gods must have had a roundtable. They must have met to discuss, in
detail, what they could do to test the Joes’ players, coaching staff, and
management, along with their fans.
Here
it is, the 19th of July, and 23 games into the Great Lakes Summer
Collegiate League season. The Joes
are now 6-17, having lost those 17 games by a total of 38 runs. (2.24 runs per game) They’ve lost six one-run ballgames,
four by two runs, three by three runs, and four by four runs (and one of those
was a 10-inning loss).
What
else could be the cause? It must
be supernatural.
Everything
was clicking. Hamilton was beating
up every pitcher Lima threw at them, even though they were on the road. Brent Suter was on the way to another
gem-of-a-game over the first placed Lima Locos.
Lima
got lucky with two outs in the 2nd when second baseman, Tyler
Schunk, dropped the third out in shallow right, just inside the grass behind
first base. But the Joes overcame
with a huge 5th inning and took the lead.
Then,
in the 7th inning, disaster struck again. With the Joes up, 4-2 with two outs and a 1-2 count, Suter left one out
over the plate for Lima shortstop, Shannon McCormick, and the ball ended up
taking a chalk bath on the right field line. Dustin Lacy took over for Suter, who gave up four runs (only
two of which were earned) on seven hits, while striking out seven. In relief, Lacy found it just as hard
to escape the inning.
After
breaking the tie in the 8th, leading 5-4, Dustin Lacy found it just
as tough as the 7th. An
error by catcher Radley Haddad led to the lead off man, Tristan Moore, taking
second and third base. After a
strikeout, Lima was able to get the runner in on a sacrifice fly. Then, that broken record skipped
again. With two outs, Lima went on
to score two more runs on another Hamilton error.
After
a scoreless top of the 9th, the Joes went home scratching their
heads and wondering about the what-ifs…again.
Boxscore