Saturday, March 4, 2017

Friday, March 3rd


The Tale of The Hurricane
You will probably read about the wind in most of the game recaps for 3/3, this one included. I will take it one step further and base the entire write up on the weather. Indeed, our first March game had some gusts of wind, the weather service called for 15-20 MPH and we hit it, along with the softball. As you know, Florida is the sunshine state and we get plenty of rays, at least we had a beautiful sunny day to play ball. On an average Florida averages over 100 clear sunny days a year. The Apalachicola region, in the panhandle, leads the state of Florida for the clearest days with sun, with 128. Yuma, AZ, in comparison, gets 242 clear, sunny days a year. Florida is known to be the consistently warmest state, in the continental US.
The A’s took on the Angels to see who could best conquer the wind and win the game today. The A’s started the game with a breeze in their sails, we scored 9 runs in the first three innings. The Angels were tossed like a kite in the wind and crashed several times into the ground. After 3 innings, the score was 9-2, in favor of the A’s.
In the 4th inning the Angels brewed up a storm of their own, scoring 7 runs to tie the game. Guzman, Busch, Wiltshire, McCollough, Reponen, Wise, JD , Thirey and Shipley provided the gust that was needed to score the runs. After 4 innings, A’s: 9- Angels: 9.
Over the next several innings both teams were caught in a whirlwind. The game stayed tight until the 8th inning. That is when the whirlwind became a tornado, with the Angels at the vortex. They scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th ,while having shut out the A’s in the top of the 8th. After 8 innings, the score was A’s: 15- Angels: 20. Storm Warning: This was the quiet before the storm for the A's.
The real storm made landfall at the DiamondPlex in the 9th inning. The A’s hit like a hurricane. Shirer, Quinones, Matta, and Essenmacher started the storm surge with hits. Then Book came up in the eye of the hurricane and blew the barn roof off, with a bases clearing triple. Carp, Coffman, Reagen, Bailey, Goose, Alumbaugh, Stier all littered the field with debris, in the form of hits and sacrifice flies. We had worked our way through the lineup, but the storm persisted. It was another round of hitting again with Shirer, Quinones, Matta and Essenmacher reaching base. Finally, the winds of rallying died down and the hurricane passed. The damage was done though, the A’s scored 13 runs. The Angels bats hit a cold front in the bottom of the 9th and the game ended with the final score of A’s: 28-Angels: 20.  
More weather phenomena: Kirk Coffman was the storm chaser. He made several good defensive plays, while playing as the middle fielder.
Special thanks to chief meteorologist, Ron Pepin ,for umpiring the game. Pep did a great job.
Players swinging hot bats for the A’s:
Alumbaugh: 4/6.
Stier: 4/6.
Shirer: 4/6. Double
Quinones: 4/5 and a SF.
Matta: 4/6.
Essenmacher: 6/6.
Book: 4/5. Triple
Carp: 4/5.
Coffman: 4/5.
Reagen: 3/5.
Bailey: 3/5.
Players swinging hot bats for the Angels:
Shipley: 3/5.
Brock: 4/5.
Guzman: 3/5.
Busch: 5/5.
Wiltshire: 4/5.
Reponen: 4/5.
JD: 4/4. Double.
Write up by Nick Matta

No comments:

Post a Comment