When Ken Burns produces his next hagiographic documentary of America's pasttime, when George Will pens his next paean rhapsodizing about this sport we love, when Tom Boswell bangs out his next column using sabremetrics to analyze why the Nationals are a 21-19 team despite an awesome pitching staff while the 14-4 Wolverines only need two pitchers, none of them will be writing about last night's 9-3 win over Annandale.
(Editor's note: parents, do not fret -- I looked those big words up, and hagiographic, paean, and arguably sabremetrics actually do belong in a family publication. Reporter: thanks for the trust.)
A win is a win, and there were certainly bright spots, but the West Potomac squad did not play their sharpest game of the year, committing a season high five errors and also gifting four runners with first base on walks/a hit by pitch. Two of the three Atom (Atomic?) runs were unearned, and the visitors did not take full advantage of the opportunities they were gifted.
Meanwhile, at bat, the Wolverines were inconsistent facing pitching so slow and loopy that they had a hard time consistently hitting the ball hard. Coming off games against the fine pitchers from West Springfield and South County, dealing with pitching the likes of which they hadn't faced since days of yore at Carl Sandburg or Walt Whitman's pristine fields proved difficult.
Starting pitcher Jayne Orleans created trouble for herself by walking the lead-off batter, and the fourth hitter, but also included two strikeouts and then induced a weak groundout for the third out of the first.
The Wolverines scored three runs in the home half of the first without even getting a hit. Three of the first four batters walked or reached on an error, moved up a base on a bad throw, then scored on wild pitches and errors. Annandale then pulled their pitcher for the second inning, who, despite walking two to lead-off the game, should have been out of the first inning with no damage, except for the two costly errors that weren't her fault.
Annabelle Miller provided the highlight for the top of the second with a diving catch in foul territory. The rest of the inning shall go unremarked upon.
After Olivia Manous walked leading off the second, she promptly stole second. Olivia has got to be leading the team in stolen bases. Kate Gregory lined the first Wolverine hit to center, but hit it so hard that the speedy Olivia had to stop at third. Nikki Minnis drove Olivia in with a sacrifice fly to left (one of six putouts by the leftfielder in the game!). Annabelle hit into a 6-3 putout to drive in Kate, and Grace Moery scored on Raven Williams' RBI single down the third base line.
The battery of Christina Dillard and Harley Divine came for the third inning. The Atoms took advantage of a hit and two errors to scratch out an unearned run to cut the lead to 6-1. Christina ended the threat of more runs with a backwards K.
After a walk to Harley, Maddie Miller smacked a single to put two Wolverines on with none out, but the two runners literally died on base (Editor's note: Okay, just because Google Dictionary has decided "literally" means the same as "figuratively" which literally means literally has no meaning at all -- figuratively speaking of course -- doesn't mean you should use literally in a figurative sense designed to scare the Millers and Divines that their daughters may have not survived last night's game. No more using literally as a synonym for figuratively! Reporter: Do you literally mean that? Figures.)
The Atoms scored another unearned run in the fourth, as an outfield error allowed the batter to take second on a single. After Christina whiffed the next two batter, a single to left brought in the runner from third.
In the bottom of the fourth, the Wolverines added three insurance runs to close out their scoring. Grace and Annabelle led off taking two for the team (one each), executing the last seen in the 10-12 Ft. Hunt league back-to-back hit-by-pitch. Grace later scored on a passed ball followed by an errant throw to third.
Christina legged out an infield single, beating the throw by one estimation -- a throw that in any event was not held by the first baseman. After discussions that went on longer than the Paris Peace Talks of 1973, the umpire called Christina out (Remember how exciting it was to follow the daily progress of the peace talks? I was in elementary school back then, and it was all us kids could talk about!) . Megan Jackson had already gone to first to pinch run for her, so Megan's first action since being hurt last Thursday literally ended with her not even being allowed to occupy first base for one whole pitch, (which is kind of metaphysically mind-blowing, if you think about it).
With two outs, Harley walked, Maddie singled in her sister (remember, Annabelle reached base two paragraphs and two parenthetical meanderings ago), Izzy Crawn patiently drew a walk, and Kate Gregory collected her second single of the night to drive in Eliza Treadway, running for Harley. Maddie was cut down at the plate trying to score from second to end the inning, with a 9-2 lead. The Atoms went down meekly in the top of the fifth, with Christina racking up another strikeout.
In the bottom half of the fifth, Katie Hinkell was hit by a pitch, and went to first. The ump talked to the catcher, and then changed his mind. While the pitch clearly did not hit Katie, having the ump changed his mind after conferring with the catcher (for those of you not paying attention to the sport, in a situation involving the batter, the catcher plays for the OTHER team, and thus is generally not considered an unbiased font of advice for the ump.) Katie liked her brief time on first so much that she promptly nailed a single and got back there. Grace Moery followed with a beautiful bunt for a basehit, and again the Wolverines had two runners on with no outs. Three straight fly balls to the leftfielder ended the threat. Overall, West Potomac stranded 10 runners on base for the game.
The Atoms scored their third and final run on some singles, a hit batter and an error. The threat ended when Annabelle caught a laser line drive for the second out, and then lasered the ball over to Raven for the inning-ending double play as the Annandale runner took off on contact.
Maddie had a hit in the bottom of the sixth, and some other stuff happened, but no runs. Annandale led off their last licks with a double, but then Christina struck out two of the next three outs and we all went home to watch The Middle and Modern Family on our DVRs.
Wolverine Whispers: As our lovely and talented team rep emailed last night, tonight's South County game at West Potomac has been moved to a 5pm start, interfering with David Orleans' happy hour. He'll deal with it. The continuation of the West Springfield game from Wednesday night's lightning storm is still being negotiated. A bi-partisan team of Condoleeza Rice and John Kerry are involved to help resolve the likely Saturday start time. The prospect of heavy rains tonight/tomorrow does not make for an easy solution.
Christina finished the game with six strikeouts and no walks in her five innings of work. She did hit a batter. Jayne added in three Ks in her two innings, which matches her walks. Kate and Maddie combined had half of the team's eight hits. (See, you were wrong in seventh grade -- you actually do get to apply algebra in real life! If X is the number of hits the two got, and X is equal to 50% of 8, how much is X? Y is the number of hits Kate and Maddie each got, and Y is equal to 1/2 of X. How much is Y? Now, we will take a break from this blog while you all write letters of apology to your 7th grade algebra teachers.)
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