After two games against these guys, we must give them props. They didn't light us up with the bat. They just hit when they needed to. They were not tremendously fast. They just had the skill and the know how to run bases well. On the hill, they did not overpower us. They just threw strikes. Defensively, they made very few mistakes and forced us to leave 23 runners on base in two games. Can I say that again? 23 RUNNERS LEFT ON BASE. Now I cannot give them ALL for credit for that stat as we did help by striking out 13 times in 2 games, 9 times with runners in scoring position. Even knowing that, Their pitchers STILL had to pitch in pressure situations, and for the Gators, they came through.
Enough about them...
Our first game against the Gators was well played. After starting a little slow, Devin Hurtado took control and relied on a solid defense to keep the game close, with us down 1-0 going into the 5th. In that 5th, Jelani Davis reached with a walk, then sole 2nd and third. After two strikeouts, Jelani was still on 3rd when CK Toribio drove him in with a single to left center (a 3-0 pitch). Vinnie Poole then crushed an 0-2 fastball about 300 feet to right for an easy triple. trouble was, his third base coach thought the double cut somehow would get screwed up and sent the poor kid home (he was exhausted) well, let's just say I still owe him a "fence-and-back". Unfortunately, that was the third out of the inning, and it was crucial. We were up 2-1.
After the Gators responded with 2 runs of their own in the bottom of the 5th, We then got more runners on and in scoring position, but ran out of gas... We go down 3-2.
In the end, we seemed a little slow, a little tired and frankly, a little scared. I was disappointed with our team-mates in the last game as I felt we needed just a little bit more fire to win games like this. I told them to go home, get some sleep and come out Sunday with some purpose....
