Well, that was interesting....

I didn't know what to say to the boys in the post game huddle. What a wild finish. We've played better games, but not more fun games. Twists and turns and weirdness.

Our batting was a little better, we put the ball in play a few more times. Still not quite enough hits as I want to see.

Our defense made some nice plays-still a few errors, but stuff I remember....
They jacked one to right field, and their runner attempted to score from first. We were able to throw the ball in quickly, and threw their guy out at the plate.
Ed had a goofy play at 2nd base to throw somebody out at first. Had a weird bobble, but he hung with it, and got him. Schmidtty had a nice play at shortstop on a hard hit ball to get the out at 2nd in the 2nd.

Here is the inside skinny on some stuff going on during the game. First the play at the plate, that may or may not have been interference. First off, our umpire, Anson did a good job at the plate on ball/strike, safe/outs. Nice to have umpiring like that. But anyway, on that play, I thought there might have been batter interference on the play, where Spencer got into the batter. So I asked if that might have been the case, as a play like that is relatively easy to correct.

Then Anson initially agreed there was interference, but sent the runner back to 3rd. But with that call, is why I asked for time, and went out to talk to Anson. There is nothing in the rules on that, about sending somebody back. If there is 1 out (which there wasn't), the runner would be out, if interference were judged. If there is 2 outs, which there was, the batter is out, and the inning ends. Anson agreed with my point. The Royals coaches then argued that it was not interference, that the batter attemptted to get out of the way. At that point, I left the discussion, because I am not going to argue judgment calls in a LL game. (I will discuss misapplications of rules, but not judgment calls)

Anson then decided it was not interference. That was a tough call. I could go either way with it. A batter cannot magically disappear, and we did have a crazy pitch, so we caused the fracas on our own bad play. But the batter could have had a bit more of a clue as to what was happening, and got out of the way. So that is why there was no further peep out of me on the matter.

On another case, the Royals had runners on 2nd and 3rd and their #5 hitter (Darland) up in the 7th inning. He had already hit a bomb on Jerald. I instructed Grant to throw them high, cause I know Darland likes them high. And if we walked him, no big deal. I heard some fans encouraging Grant to throw strikes. He was actually doing exactly as I told him--an unintentional, intentional walk. They were in the perfect spot, and Grant executed my instructions perfectly. So we got the bases loaded, and were able to then get an out at the plate. However Grant struck the next guy out. Then we had an error on a ground ball to Grant and the throw over to Mick at first. So we played it out well, just didn't quite execute it.

To that, I thought Grant did a great job in relief. Jerald pitched a good game, up until the 6th when he started pitching batting practice instead of getting outs. Other than the 2nd inning, he had been pitching well. So Grant came in, and finished out the 6th. He had some roughness in the 7th, but our batters bailed him out in the bottom.

I made Grant's dad, Brad, earn his pay tonite. He had a lot of bangers out on the field for safe/out. I thought he got them all right (even those that went against us). So thanks to Brad for his effort on the bases. That reminds me of the nice swipe tag CJ had at 3rd, where Spencer threw the ball down on an attempted steal attempt by Rader. Good job by those two.

No game or practice til Monday. As a team. But my expectation is that the boys find a buddy, and play catch, and hit wiffles, or bounce tennis balls of the garage door, or something. Our hitting is still subpar, and it is always good to keep the arm loose.