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Old 05-06-2019, 03:12 AM   #11
joehart
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PT playoffs have arrived....

The team secured a spot in the Division series (best of 5) and was matched up with the Chicago Penderloins (NC West division leader with a 87-75 record).

The opposing team featured a pitching staff with good control and two gold star pictures:

Hank Aguire - well balanced stats: 75 Stuff, 63 Movement, 64 Control.
Chris Paddack - great stuff with great control: 80 Stuff, 48 Movement, 89 Control.




Overall, our team looked better on paper so my son figured he would make it to the next round without too much trouble.
He was wrong. He lost the first game 12-0. Hank Aguirre pitched 9 innings with 7 Hits and no Runs and no Walks.
On his team, Bob Gibson gave up 5 ER in just 2.2 innings.
The series went back and forth (0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2) before the all important 5th match in our own ballpark.

It was going to be a rematch between Hank Aguirre and Bob Gibson.
While not quite the rematch of epic proportions like Ali vs Joe Frazier in the Philippines (The Thrilla in Manila), it was enough for both boys to wait at the computer for the results.

This time, Gibson was able to last 5.1 innings and gave up only 2 hits.
Again, Aguirre was the better pitcher but his team failed him with 3 Errors and 3 additional Unearned Runs.



The Woodinville team would move on to the next round with a much needed win.



Semi Finals (Best of 7) against the Pangalactic Gargleblasters

I had to tell the kids that the Gargle Blaster was from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is described as "like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped 'round a large gold brick."

It gave the kids a great laugh and now I am on the hook to make a non-alcoholic sour drink that makes them feel like they had a "Gargleblaster".


The series went very unexpected. We expected to have some trouble with pitchers focused on high stuff (less movement and control).
but as quickly as the series started, it was over.
My son won 2-0, 6-1, 5-1, and 3-0 and secured his first spot in the finals.




My son reminded me of the kid he faced yesterday in his baseball game, the kid was a flame thrower and could throw far harder than
any kid we have seen this season in Little league.

Unfortunately, his lack of control put my son on base pretty quickly.
Perfect team matches real baseball....without Movement and Control, Stuff alone is not enough to win.



Finals (Best of 7) against the Boulder Blue.

With 5 Diamond players, 11 Gold players and a few silver pitchers, we expected this to be a long battle for the title.
However, with many Left Handed starters on the team this was going to be a problem. We knew that we would not do well against Left Handed pitchers.

And exactly that happened...the team lost the first match 2-5 against LHP Fernando Valenzuela and then 6-9 against LHP Patrick Corbin.
With 3 away games next, this will be a tough one to solve.

However, the unexpected happened and the team won 3 games in a row
despite being drawn into high scoring games.



With two opportunities to win it all, my son got really excited and made some last minute adjustments. For the last game, he decided to put in Paul Splittorff, who had the lowest WHIP in the league.

His hope was to keep the game number of hits and final score low so he could take advantage of his top notch defense.

Even though Patrick Corbin proved to be the better pitcher, Splittorff kept the score low and the team won the championship when Blake Treinen and Corey Knebel gave up additional runs late in the game.





First championship in the books. Congrats to my son and his brother who had a blast this season.

Awards won:

Golden Glove: Ichiro Suzuki (RF)
Silver Slugger: Tony Gwynn (LF)
Pitcher of the Year: Bob Gibson (SP)


Now it is time to fix the mistakes made last season.

__________________


Last edited by joehart; 05-06-2019 at 03:55 AM.
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