Sunday, April 3, 2011

April 2, 2011 (Games 65+66): Baseball Doubleheader vs. St. John's

Note: I am combining the two games of the doubleheader into one post, which I will do for all doubleheaders. However, the games will be reviewed separately below.

What: Baseball Doubleheader vs. St. John's

When: Game 1: Saturday, April 2, 2011, 12:00 PM, Game 2: 2:50 PM

Where: J.O. Christian Field

Result Game 1: Win 9-1

Result Game 2: Win 6-5

Game 1 Review:

This game was originally scheduled to begin at 1:00 but with the yesterday's game rained out, today became a doubleheader starting at noon. Matt Barnes had a perfect game through four innings, but St. John's struck for one run on three hits in the fifth to go up 1-0. They would fall apart in the 6th inning though, and ultimately our bats would dominate and we would win, 9-1.

The Red Storm pitcher was Kyle Hansen, who apparently threatened several members of the K-9 Unit after the game, saying "I want to beat your a** up" and having to be restrained by teammates. If only he'd pulled an Artest, that would have been crazy. But he didn't.

Between games was a nice experience, as the K-9 Unit students got wings. And some other people got them too because our group was depleted from people in Houston at the Final Four (another way of heckling St. John's)

Game 2:

This one was a bit more exciting. St. John's leadoff batter Matt Wassinger led off the game with a home run to put the Red Storm up 1-0. We would put up two runs in the bottom of the second to take the lead. But the Red Storm came roaring back, scoring two in the fifth and two in the sixth to go up 5-1. It looked like we were done, and when a rain/snow squall hit in between innings, some started to leave.

But we would pick up an unearned run in the bottom of the inning after Nick Ahmed scored on what should have been an inning-ending double play. In the bottom of the eighth, we had the bases loaded and one out. Mike Nemeth hit a ground ball to first. They threw to second and George Springer was clearly safe but was called out. A run still came home to make it 5-4, but Ryan Fuller struck out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the ninth, pinch hitter Tim Martin (who had gone 3-4 in game one) singled up the middle, scoring Ryan Moore to tie the game. Then, LJ Mazilli hit what appeared to be a routine fly ball to Centerfield which would have sent the game into extra innings. But centerfielder Kyle Richardson dropped the ball! Martin was hustling all the way and came around to score the winning run to the disbelief of everyone in the ballpark. My reaction was something along the lines of "Ugh. Extra innings ag- HOLY #@%$ HE DROPPED IT! WE WON!!!!!!!!" and I'm sure many other fans were thinking the same thing. A bizarre finish to the second game of a doubleheader.

Meanwhile, over on the adjacent softball field, UConn swept Rutgers in their own nearly simultaneous doubleheader, and of course, the Men's Basketball team beat Kentucky in the Final Four later last night. Today, both baseball and softball go for a sweep, and the Women's Basketball team tries to beat Notre Dame in the Final Four. I'll be at baseball. And hopefully the women win tonight, and both teams win the championship on Monday and Tuesday. Until then, Go Huskies!

6 comments:

  1. So for some odd reason I came across this blog. Not a big fan, your 'writeups' are quite rudimentary and really don't give me any insight to what actually happened during the game. Any idiot could write 'I went to the game and was disappointed in the loss' without giving much more than fluff to fill up a few lines. I am also really flabbergasted that you have this 'UConn Sports Blog' but don't write shit about football or even really men's basketball (you haven't mentioned one thing about the fact that this is just the 2nd time in history where a particular school's men and women's basketball teams have reached the final four and football team reaches a major bowl game.
    Not sure that this blog can be resurrected.

    Good luck though.

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  2. Hey. I tried to email this to you, but it got rejected because your email isn't real.
    Thanks for the constructive criticism which you left on my blog (http://greguconngames.wordpress.com) . I generally write reviews on games I went to. I wasn't at the Final Four. I may publish one post at the end of the Tournaments. But that's not the main focus of this blog. I try to put a more personal touch on the games than the mainstream sources. However, that is not always easy to do. In the softball example, it took me several days to actually write the post due to various issues, so it wasn't as fresh in my mind, thus leading to me essentially saying I was disappointed with the loss and little else. In the future, I may start adding commentary on other games which I watched on TV or something, but that really is not the focus of my blog. I may do it for big games, which the NCAA Tournament certainly is - but it will likely just be one post on Wednesday after the women's final (or Tuesday after the men's if the women lose tonight). If you have any other questions, comments, compliments, or criticisms of my blog, just let me know. Thank you.

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  3. Im struggling to get a way to make contact with you through your website, do you not have a contact form on the website at all?

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  4. Sorry. I added a contact page, though I believe it is already under about. But this should make it more clear. See there for my email.

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