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6 October 2052
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SCLmagpiesnation.com
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Hart dominates again as Magpies breeze to victory in WLCS opener
By Maggie Pye | 6 Oct | 32,776 comments
The Magpies went into the league championship series as narrow bookies’ favourites, but the Tycoons will have been confident after leading 7-5 in head-to-head games over the regular season. Magpies ace Tom Hart, however, was in no mood to lose the opening game at the Iowa Ballpark.
Hart pounded the Austin lineup from the outset, retiring 19 of the first 23 batters he faced, and not allowing any Tycoons runners into scoring position. Austin phenom Stanley MacPherson matched him with goose eggs for 5.2 innings, but then the Magpies lineup broke through. Ángel Ochoa’s 3-run blast, measured at 400 ft exactly, opened the scoring, before Ángel Márquez put MacPherson’s very next pitch 403 ft into the next row of seats further back for another run.
With Hart’s pitch count at 119, manager Gabe Kepler took him out of the game just one out away from the shutout, finishing with a line of 8.2 IP, 7 H, 0 ER, 0 K. The cheers from the crowd as Hart left the field were surpassed in volume only by those a few minutes later when Ricardo Vargas struck out first baseman Daniel Ramsey to end the game. Final score: 5-0.
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