[Sal, The Barber]

14 October 2010
Cheyenne, WY

The WS begins today. Cheyenne vs. Altoona. The Mountain Citys won 93 games this season and do pose a formidable test. Altoona’s greatest asset is their starting pitching. Brad Wood, Jonah Taylor, Jeff Reynolds, and Hoshi Ono make up a great starting four. And then they have a little plunk. Deron Haynes, their third baseman, hit 43 HRs this season. The series will also feature two players who were traded for each other: Luis Lopez, now Altoona’s centerfielder and lead-off hitter, and Michael Edwards of Cheyenne.

Game One
Curt Clark against Brad Wood. We were expecting a pretty intense pitcher’s duel, but the game quickly took an odd turn in the bottom of the first. Luis Lopez led off the game with a bunt single, but Clark set the next three hitters down in order.

Kelham singled to begin the bottom half of the inning, and Lopez fumbled the ball and let it scoot past him. Altoona, like Cheyenne, was the best defensive club in their league, but the error cost them another base. So Kelham stood on second with no one out.

Robbins then batted and stung a line drive through the left side. Kelham had to stop at third. Michael Edwards tapped a weak ground ball just off of home plate, but Ben Franklin, the great patriot and Altoona catcher, lost the ball. The two errors cost Brad Wood a run, at which point he decided he wouldn’t wait for his team to begin the Series; he took it over himself. At least, he took over the first inning.

He got two strike outs, then walked Makeever to load them up, but got Trujillo to ground out.

Perhaps Altoona showed a bit of nerves there in the inning. If so, that’s all the while they lasted. The game settled down. Neither pitcher was unhittable, but no runners crossed home plate until the fifth.

In the top of the fifth, Franklin doubled, and Clark threw two wild pitches that brought the man who dared to fly a kite in the lightening home. It was an uneventful inning other than the wild pitches.

In the bottom of the fifth, with the score tied, Cheyenne responded. And this was where the game was won. Leading off the inning was Eric Kelham. Kelham is the most spirit-crushing player any team can have; he has a killer instinct, and he delivers in clutch situations time after time. And then with Robbins batting right after him, our offense just goes. And sure enough, Kelham leads off the inning with a shot to center that he turns into a triple. Robbins smokes the first pitch he sees back through the middle, and we’ve re-taken the lead just like that. But that’s not it. The Cowboys put on a hit and run with Edwards up. He swings and misses, but Robbins doesn’t miss second. Edwards then launches a deep fly to right that moves Robbins to third. Davilla singles, and Robbins scores. Hicks grounds out, but Davilla moves up, and Makeever singles to score Davilla. 4-1 going to the sixth.

In the top of the inning, Altoona shows some pluck and comes right back against Clark. A one-out double by Haynes, a walk, and then a single to right. Haynes heads for home, and he is OUT! The next Altoona hitter strikes out.

After the sixth, we took out Clark. Clark had given up 3 doubles and thrown about 100 pitches. We were trusting our bullpen for this one. Tsou got four outs. Augusto Gonzalez, who was in AAA most of the season, got three outs. Robles came on after Gonzalez had given up a single in the ninth to get the last 2 outs. The final score was 4-1. Altoona had 10 hits, so I don’t expect every game to be low-scoring or even close. Our offense will be continually challenged by their pitching, but our defense proved to make a difference in Game One.