OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty, Year 2: One Flew Over the Pale Hose

cknox0723 · 06-29-2008, 04:42 PM

The Yankees go for the series win by throwing their 22 year old prodigy Tyler Clippard, a kid who's already won that many games in the bigs at his young age. AL batting average leader Ramon Vazquez starts the ballgame off with a single. After LF "Roadrunner" Podsednik whiffs, #3 hitter Magglio Ordonez goes to the opposite field with a single, putting runners on the corners for our cleanup man. CF Wells cracks one to the right side, and 2B Giles has to just knock it down before he can do anything with it. The throw to first is late, and Vazquez is home safely with our first run. 3B Munson hits a soft tapper back to the pitcher for out number three.

Our right-hander is 35 year old Esteban Loaiza, brilliant with a 13-9 and 3.33 ledger a year after losing 16 games and posting an ugly 5.32 ERA, particularly brilliant in the playoffs so far with two sharp seven inning outings. His first at bat is ugly, uglier than even that past season in which I took to calling Loaiza "The Art of Suck." He leaves a wanting fastball out of the plate and Derek Jeter crushes it into a sea of jubilant fans in the loud, LOUD right field seats. Tie game. After CF Winn bounces out to "Speedy Gonzalez" Vazquez at short, 3B Rodriguez comes out of his ALCS funk with another loud, long bomb that finds a bleacher seat, not a glove. So much for a tie game. That's the scoring for the inning, all of it, but there's too much of it for my tastes. That's all the balls that get out of the infield, so maybe that's a good sign, but it sucks looking for the brightness in dark clouds when you NEED a win or the season over. These clouds better part and quick or we're done.

Top of the second inning goes one-two-three for the 22 year old Clippard. 1B "Shrunken" Giambi singles to start the bottom half, followed by a single by light-hitting catcher Lunsford, who's done nothing all series. The baby-faced pitcher lays down a perfect sacrifice bunt, and being careful with "Clutch" Jeter with two runners in scoring position, Loaiza lets him go with a walk. Bases loaded, one out, team at bat already with a one run lead. The floodgates could open real quick right here, with a .300 hitter in CF Randy Winn followed by the heart of the order of a team with a hundred and something million dollar payroll.

Loaiza responds with one sharp and perfectly placed offspeed pitch followed by another, getting ahead 0-2, and then the adrenaline or manufactured hormones kick in and he blows a fastball by Winn. That's big time. Of course there's still an out left to get, three runners out on the bases, and a guy who's hit, oh, 500 or so home runs in his career in 3B Alex Rodriguez. One bad pitch and that big time strikeout is gonna be irrelevant because...

Because the game's gonna be in the Yankees hands anyway. Loaiza throws that one bad pitch, just leaving one out over the plate a little too much, and Rodriguez crushes it way, way out there into the open skies...

His first inning blast landed in the left field seats. This one's out towards the middle of the outfield, so instead of clearing the bases by hitting a wall or a seat, there's space and time for Vernon Wells to track it down, keeping the score 2-1.

Doesn't do a damn thing for our offense, hitless again in the third, which wastes a two-out opportunity after "Speedy Gonzalez" draws a walk and swipes second. Loaiza takes the bump in the bottom of the inning and LF Matsui leads off with a frozen rope to the left-center field gap, good for a two-bagger. 2B Giles plates with a softer hit to the same area, putting the game again in a dangerous place where things could get out of hand quickly, but Loaiza gets a reprieve by mowing down the lighter-hitting bottom part of the order.

Cleanup man Wells leads off in the fourth and strikes out swinging. 3B Eric Munson pops out to the catcher Lunsford in foul territory. 1B Catalanotto strikes out looking. How's no balls in play for an offensive black hole?

A Jeter double followed by a Rodriguez single stretches the home team's lead to four to one after four full innings. Though that one run is all they get in the fourth, this constant parade of hits and baserunners is stickier than ticker tape.

If it's still four-one after five, a deep bullpen like theirs can probably hold that lead for 4 innings, especially since only one club's putting the round bat on the round ball and hitting it square, and it ain't the Pale Hose. All that would mean we're going home 'til next year. But 2B Adam Kennedy draws a leadoff walk, giving us a baserunner without any outs for the first time since the first inning. Then we get a ball hit square. As luck has it sometimes, this ball gets hit square at somebody. But even though C Yorvit Torrealba one hop rocket down the 3rd base line is snared on the dive by "Game 6 Hero?" Rodriguez, and his bullet to first nails the slow-footed catcher by a step or two, it's a ball hit hard. It's not watching a parade of hits by the other team, or three quick outs made without a ball getting hit in fair territory, or our number three or four or five hitters making weak little outs. There's a runner in scoring position with less than two outs, and maybe there's even a pulse as the number nine spot in the order comes up.

A pulse! The pitcher Loaiza sneaks a little liner past the infield, Kennedy rounds third and beats no-armed CF Winn's wimpy throw and the deficit's down to just two little crooked numbers. Speedsters Vazquez and Podsednik make two more of those quick little meek outs to end the frame without any more fireworks, but being down 4-1 entering the sixth seemed a lot scarier than being down 4-2. Maybe all runs are created equal, but probably not in the playoffs when you're facing a bullpen that could kick some serious ass if all it's got to do is get through four innings.

Loaiza marches through the fifth, no hits, no messes, a runner that reaches on error quickly erased by a caught stealing. In the sixth it's the heart of the order for the Pale Hose and the home starter Clippard stays in. RF Ordonez hits a two-hopper to third. CF Wells pops out to left.

Then left-handed hitting third baseman Eric Munson blasts a no doubt about it long ball to right-center, longer than either of the two home runs hit earlier, and just like that the lead's down to a single run, 4-3.

1B Catalanotto rolls over an easy grounder to second to end the inning.

Home backstop Lunsford might be putting himself in Yankee lore with a single to left to start the bottom of the sixth, his second hit of the game.

Silly computer mistake but let the pitcher bat, or more accurately try to bunt, though I'm sure I've done things that are just as silly. He can't bunt or hit, and strikes out. SS Jeter pops out, but CF Winn gets plunked by an errant pitch and that brings up 3B Rodriguez, two out and two on, and he is just killing the ball today.

Loaiza gets ahead in the count, at-bat ends up a strike out looking. Believe there's a chance yet for the season to keep going? Just a chance?

Batting: Chicago (A), top of 7th.

Pitching: Tyler Clippard
2B Adam Kennedy:
DOUBLES down the right field line.
C Yorvit Torrealba:
SINGLES down the left field line.
A. Kennedy to third.
Kennedy scores.
Torrealba to second.

How about now? And that was just the first two batters of the inning.

That duo at the bottom of the order is a huge reason why a kind of lame and weak little team can string together some runs, provide some offense for a decent pitching staff. Sort of stumble their way into a game six, and all of a sudden end up back in that game when things looked like they were going to hell in the second.

But Clippard rebounds, striking out pinch-hitter Enrique Wilson. SS Vazquez smacks one in the area of short, and Jeter makes a nice stop but kicks it around after that, and the speedster beats his throw into the bag. It goes in the books as an error. Maybe if Vazquez was a fat catcher, that fumble or two would have given him the base, but "Speedy Gonzalez" can outrun almost any baseball.

LF Podsednik was acquired for a king's ransom at the deadline and then his bat completely went to hell down the stretch. He was "LDS Jesus" for a day, almost single-handedly winning the clinching game of the ALDS with three hits including a home run, but this at-bat is more like all of those disgusting September ones. Strike one! Strike two! And with his back to the wall, a lunge, a bad hack, and...back to the dugout.

That ends Clippard's day, and right-hander Travis Harper comes on to face the heart of the order. It doesn't end like all those other at-bats in this game, like all those pitiful outs in all those other games. RF Ordonez singles to center. CF Wells singles to center. It's 6-4 before Eric Munson grounds out to second to end the inning, and this team carried by pitching isn't going to cough that up. Akinori Otsuka pitches a scoreless seventh, pitches us into the ninth with a one-two-three eighth inning...

And Joe Roa gives up a leadoff hit to Randy Winn. Joe Roa, who's saved 37 Pale Hose games in the last two years but blew a tie game in extra innings in game 3 and a save opportunity in game 5, suddenly he could blow one more and Alex Rodriguez is lumbering at the plate. Roa loses him quickly, five pitches and just one in the strike zone, and now one swing of the bat could end it all. Is that really how it's supposed to go?

Not this time. LF Matsui hits a hard bouncer towards first base. 1B Catalanotto stops it, gets the force at second. One out and men on the corners for 2B Giles, who takes a ball and then swings when he shouldn't have, at a sinker burrowing down towards the ground. He rolls it right back to Roa, who pivots and tosses it to second. SS Vazquez catches it cleanly, and with all his momentum going over the second base bag and towards first, fires one down to Catalanotto. Game over.

Game seven, here we come.

06-29-2008, 04:42 PM	#947
cknox0723 All Star Starter Join Date: May 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 1,957	how to win a game 6 The Yankees go for the series win by throwing their 22 year old prodigy Tyler Clippard, a kid who's already won that many games in the bigs at his young age. AL batting average leader Ramon Vazquez starts the ballgame off with a single. After LF "Roadrunner" Podsednik whiffs, #3 hitter Magglio Ordonez goes to the opposite field with a single, putting runners on the corners for our cleanup man. CF Wells cracks one to the right side, and 2B Giles has to just knock it down before he can do anything with it. The throw to first is late, and Vazquez is home safely with our first run. 3B Munson hits a soft tapper back to the pitcher for out number three. Our right-hander is 35 year old Esteban Loaiza, brilliant with a 13-9 and 3.33 ledger a year after losing 16 games and posting an ugly 5.32 ERA, particularly brilliant in the playoffs so far with two sharp seven inning outings. His first at bat is ugly, uglier than even that past season in which I took to calling Loaiza "The Art of Suck." He leaves a wanting fastball out of the plate and Derek Jeter crushes it into a sea of jubilant fans in the loud, LOUD right field seats. Tie game. After CF Winn bounces out to "Speedy Gonzalez" Vazquez at short, 3B Rodriguez comes out of his ALCS funk with another loud, long bomb that finds a bleacher seat, not a glove. So much for a tie game. That's the scoring for the inning, all of it, but there's too much of it for my tastes. That's all the balls that get out of the infield, so maybe that's a good sign, but it sucks looking for the brightness in dark clouds when you NEED a win or the season over. These clouds better part and quick or we're done. Top of the second inning goes one-two-three for the 22 year old Clippard. 1B "Shrunken" Giambi singles to start the bottom half, followed by a single by light-hitting catcher Lunsford, who's done nothing all series. The baby-faced pitcher lays down a perfect sacrifice bunt, and being careful with "Clutch" Jeter with two runners in scoring position, Loaiza lets him go with a walk. Bases loaded, one out, team at bat already with a one run lead. The floodgates could open real quick right here, with a .300 hitter in CF Randy Winn followed by the heart of the order of a team with a hundred and something million dollar payroll. Loaiza responds with one sharp and perfectly placed offspeed pitch followed by another, getting ahead 0-2, and then the adrenaline or manufactured hormones kick in and he blows a fastball by Winn. That's big time. Of course there's still an out left to get, three runners out on the bases, and a guy who's hit, oh, 500 or so home runs in his career in 3B Alex Rodriguez. One bad pitch and that big time strikeout is gonna be irrelevant because... Because the game's gonna be in the Yankees hands anyway. Loaiza throws that one bad pitch, just leaving one out over the plate a little too much, and Rodriguez crushes it way, way out there into the open skies... His first inning blast landed in the left field seats. This one's out towards the middle of the outfield, so instead of clearing the bases by hitting a wall or a seat, there's space and time for Vernon Wells to track it down, keeping the score 2-1. Doesn't do a damn thing for our offense, hitless again in the third, which wastes a two-out opportunity after "Speedy Gonzalez" draws a walk and swipes second. Loaiza takes the bump in the bottom of the inning and LF Matsui leads off with a frozen rope to the left-center field gap, good for a two-bagger. 2B Giles plates with a softer hit to the same area, putting the game again in a dangerous place where things could get out of hand quickly, but Loaiza gets a reprieve by mowing down the lighter-hitting bottom part of the order. Cleanup man Wells leads off in the fourth and strikes out swinging. 3B Eric Munson pops out to the catcher Lunsford in foul territory. 1B Catalanotto strikes out looking. How's no balls in play for an offensive black hole? A Jeter double followed by a Rodriguez single stretches the home team's lead to four to one after four full innings. Though that one run is all they get in the fourth, this constant parade of hits and baserunners is stickier than ticker tape. If it's still four-one after five, a deep bullpen like theirs can probably hold that lead for 4 innings, especially since only one club's putting the round bat on the round ball and hitting it square, and it ain't the Pale Hose. All that would mean we're going home 'til next year. But 2B Adam Kennedy draws a leadoff walk, giving us a baserunner without any outs for the first time since the first inning. Then we get a ball hit square. As luck has it sometimes, this ball gets hit square at somebody. But even though C Yorvit Torrealba one hop rocket down the 3rd base line is snared on the dive by "Game 6 Hero?" Rodriguez, and his bullet to first nails the slow-footed catcher by a step or two, it's a ball hit hard. It's not watching a parade of hits by the other team, or three quick outs made without a ball getting hit in fair territory, or our number three or four or five hitters making weak little outs. There's a runner in scoring position with less than two outs, and maybe there's even a pulse as the number nine spot in the order comes up. A pulse! The pitcher Loaiza sneaks a little liner past the infield, Kennedy rounds third and beats no-armed CF Winn's wimpy throw and the deficit's down to just two little crooked numbers. Speedsters Vazquez and Podsednik make two more of those quick little meek outs to end the frame without any more fireworks, but being down 4-1 entering the sixth seemed a lot scarier than being down 4-2. Maybe all runs are created equal, but probably not in the playoffs when you're facing a bullpen that could kick some serious ass if all it's got to do is get through four innings. Loaiza marches through the fifth, no hits, no messes, a runner that reaches on error quickly erased by a caught stealing. In the sixth it's the heart of the order for the Pale Hose and the home starter Clippard stays in. RF Ordonez hits a two-hopper to third. CF Wells pops out to left. Then left-handed hitting third baseman Eric Munson blasts a no doubt about it long ball to right-center, longer than either of the two home runs hit earlier, and just like that the lead's down to a single run, 4-3. 1B Catalanotto rolls over an easy grounder to second to end the inning. Home backstop Lunsford might be putting himself in Yankee lore with a single to left to start the bottom of the sixth, his second hit of the game. Silly computer mistake but let the pitcher bat, or more accurately try to bunt, though I'm sure I've done things that are just as silly. He can't bunt or hit, and strikes out. SS Jeter pops out, but CF Winn gets plunked by an errant pitch and that brings up 3B Rodriguez, two out and two on, and he is just killing the ball today. Loaiza gets ahead in the count, at-bat ends up a strike out looking. Believe there's a chance yet for the season to keep going? Just a chance? Batting: Chicago (A), top of 7th. Pitching: Tyler Clippard 2B Adam Kennedy: DOUBLES down the right field line. C Yorvit Torrealba: SINGLES down the left field line. A. Kennedy to third. Kennedy scores. Torrealba to second. How about now? And that was just the first two batters of the inning. That duo at the bottom of the order is a huge reason why a kind of lame and weak little team can string together some runs, provide some offense for a decent pitching staff. Sort of stumble their way into a game six, and all of a sudden end up back in that game when things looked like they were going to hell in the second. But Clippard rebounds, striking out pinch-hitter Enrique Wilson. SS Vazquez smacks one in the area of short, and Jeter makes a nice stop but kicks it around after that, and the speedster beats his throw into the bag. It goes in the books as an error. Maybe if Vazquez was a fat catcher, that fumble or two would have given him the base, but "Speedy Gonzalez" can outrun almost any baseball. LF Podsednik was acquired for a king's ransom at the deadline and then his bat completely went to hell down the stretch. He was "LDS Jesus" for a day, almost single-handedly winning the clinching game of the ALDS with three hits including a home run, but this at-bat is more like all of those disgusting September ones. Strike one! Strike two! And with his back to the wall, a lunge, a bad hack, and...back to the dugout. That ends Clippard's day, and right-hander Travis Harper comes on to face the heart of the order. It doesn't end like all those other at-bats in this game, like all those pitiful outs in all those other games. RF Ordonez singles to center. CF Wells singles to center. It's 6-4 before Eric Munson grounds out to second to end the inning, and this team carried by pitching isn't going to cough that up. Akinori Otsuka pitches a scoreless seventh, pitches us into the ninth with a one-two-three eighth inning... And Joe Roa gives up a leadoff hit to Randy Winn. Joe Roa, who's saved 37 Pale Hose games in the last two years but blew a tie game in extra innings in game 3 and a save opportunity in game 5, suddenly he could blow one more and Alex Rodriguez is lumbering at the plate. Roa loses him quickly, five pitches and just one in the strike zone, and now one swing of the bat could end it all. Is that really how it's supposed to go? Not this time. LF Matsui hits a hard bouncer towards first base. 1B Catalanotto stops it, gets the force at second. One out and men on the corners for 2B Giles, who takes a ball and then swings when he shouldn't have, at a sinker burrowing down towards the ground. He rolls it right back to Roa, who pivots and tosses it to second. SS Vazquez catches it cleanly, and with all his momentum going over the second base bag and towards first, fires one down to Catalanotto. Game over. Game seven, here we come.