The Seattle Monarchs managed to stay alive yet again in their playoff series with the Hickory by defeating the Huskers 10-4.
The Huskers drew first blood in the top of the first when George LaBarre led off with a single against Christopher Hester. LaBarre then stole second, which proved completely unnecessary when the second batter, James Drum, walked. That brought up Jesus Flores. After a double steal, Flores grounded out, bringing LaBarre home and sending Drum to third. Drum was then brought home by a Christopher Moss single, making the score 2-0.
The Monarchs struck back in the bottom of the first, with a leadoff triple by Richard Bender. He was later brought home by John Hukill's infield hit. Two batters later, Hukill came home on a Juan Gomez single.
Hickory retook the lead in the top of the third on a home run to right by Flores, but the lead was short-lived. Bruce Frison led off the bottom of the inning with a single. He stole second and then went to third on a groundout. That was all for Hickory starter James Turner as he was relieved by Jacobo Centeno. The next batter, Juan Gomez, hit a 1-2 pitch to deep left-center, bring Frison home. Gomez was brought home by Bas Bijkerk, who hit a double on the next at bat, making the score 4-3.
Seattle added another two runs in the fourth when Frison hit a two run homer to left off of reliever Franklin Erickson. Hickory tried to come back in the fifth, when they managed to get a run on a LaBarre single, a Drum single and a Christopher Moss double, bringing LaBarre home. Yet, with runners on second and third and down by two runs, Paul Shunk grounded back to the pitcher to end the inning.
Seattle added another two in the sixth with a home run by Gregorio Reyna and another two in the seventh on a John Hukill home run and pinch hitter James Dodd's single.
Game 7 -- Thursday night.
Useless fact of the day of interest only to me:
ReplyDeleteThis was the second highest-scoring season in SDMB history, behind only the 2013 campaign. Teams averaged just under five runs per game and runs scored were up 3% over last year and 5% over the 2017 season.
In my personal opinion, the scarcity of good, young pitching is starting to show up in the numbers. Most of the good starting pitchers are all on the wrong side of 30.