Decatur Donnybrooks (12-3, .800, 1st) @ Denton Dilly’s (5-10, .333, 8th)
At the beginning of the season, when we looked at our schedule most of our players circled this set as a critical series in the 1st half of the season. As the consensus pick to finish this campaign at the top of the table, Denton looked formidable with a marvelously constructed lineup and a staff that went from lights out to dark with only a sliver of light peeking out from underneath the door to the master bathroom. So, when, at 15 games into the regular season we arrived in Denton to face a 5-10 team who have made an art of underperforming it came as a bit of a surprise. After all, they have depth at most positions, speed, and versatility on the bench, and a first baseman who is widely considered the best in the game. Until they didn’t. 1B Chris Colombo, two years removed from winning the Texas Series MVP, was to be firmly entrenched in his prime – making athletic picks at the bag, drawing walks as he wore opposing pitchers out, and dropping balls into the gap seemingly at will – instead, merely 5 games into the season and after a 4-1 start, Colombo broke his kneecap sliding into 3rd. An unfortunate development – for sure – but, really, you wouldn’t have expected this kind of drop off after losing a single guy from your roster – they have depth – speed & versatility, remember? His backup – Collin Fernandes would start for a lot of other TBL clubs, so when he came in on the 6th as a replacement teams didn’t exactly breathe a huge sigh of relief. But, when, just 4 days later, in a game against the Fredericksburg Footlongs, he went down with a torn meniscus while sliding into 3rd, and after their fanbases, existential dread and severe foreboding waned, all bets were off. That’s when the tailspin gathered steam, there would be no centering the ailerons, and, for the Denton faithful that laid bets on their club winning the TBL title outright – that’s when they started to come to grips with the fact that they probably would lose a sizable chunk of their youngest’s college fund. It’s a sad state of affairs, man.
16 of 54: Andy Thatcher (1-0, 1.76) @ Alex Zavala (1-1, 8.64)
Loss, 2-1… Denton put on a stout defensive display in this one – maybe they’ve started to turn the corner, maybe they’re starting to dial in how they can win with this version of their club. Thatcher pitches them tough – 6 innings, 3 hits, and only 1 earned – before handing it off to the pen to start the 7th. In the end, Denton only needed us to make two mistakes – we gave them three… errors for Hernandez (2) and Bird, did us in. Bird, in just 22 pitches, walked the 1st batter in the 9th, gave up a double that moved him to 3rd, and then allowed the winning run in the bottom of the 9th when he threw an errant fastball that got by our catcher. What do you even call that kind of a walk-off anyways?
17 of 54: Carlos Guijarro (1-1, 4.23) @ Jon Fountain (1-1, 5.67)
Loss, 8-5… The Dilly’s, in a good way after their win yesterday, gave us the business in this one – scoring early, often, and with a reckless abandon. We’d get 9 total hits, 13 total bags, and 4 doubles in this one – the problem is – we didn’t do jack & squat with most of them. So, the difference here, in addition to Alex Fernandez’s 2 for 5, 2B, 3B, 2 RBI performance, was that we sort of sucked and they sort of didn’t.
18 of 54: Jason White (2-0, 0.00) @ Bill Repress (1-1, 6.32)
Win, 6-4… Danny Murphy goes full hero in the top of the 8th when hit hits a 2-out grand slam as a PH to cap off what would be a 6-run inning. Segobia brought in the other 2, White gave us 6.2 innings of solid work – allowing two total runs (only one of which were earned), and we turned 3 critical DP’s in this one. Here’s one of those games where you have your moments, but nothing is really clicking on a consistent basis, but where, seemingly out of nowhere, you explode and get the W. It only takes a couple of great AB’s sometimes…
