The First Playoff Victory

Well, last night our fastball team secured our first ever playoff victory in game 2 of our best of 5 series.

This is my second season playing in the Moose Jaw Men's Fastball League and it's been a lot of fun (for the most part). Our team, sponsored by the fine folks at Remax, is only in it's third year of existence. We've improved by leaps and bounds each year, going from 0 wins in year 1, to 3 wins last year and then to 6 wins this year and our first ever playoff appearance.

As the fourth place team we have the dubious honor of going toe to toe with the first place squad, the Bugsy's Canadians. The Canadians have pretty much had our number all season long. They're a great hitting team with strong hitters throughout their lineup. They also have two good pitchers that are capable of throwing a gem every time they take the mound. Needless to say we haven't been given much of a chance to stretch this series beyond 3 games.

In game 1 we jumped out to an early 2-0 lead before the Canadians even had their first at bats. By the time the fifth inning came around we were only down 4-3 and were very much in the game. The Canadians got a big two-strike, two-out grand salami in the bottom of the fifth and then a solo shot right after that to give them a 9-3 cushion. We went down quietly after that and lost game 1 by the same 9-3 score. Our guys very much felt though that the score was not indicative of how close the game was.

Game 2 saw a much tighter contest. The Canadians were missing their lead-off hitter and main catalyst so that hurt the top of their order. They also had their catcher, and one of the best hitters in the league, ejected in the second inning for arguing balls and strikes. Bad for them, good for us. However, regardless of who was missing we were still facing an excellent team with a lot of weapon's still in the lineup.

We got up 3-0 before the Canadians scored a pair in the top of the fourth inning. We quickly got a run back in the bottom half of the fourth when our catcher led off the inning with a first-pitch tater to deep left-center. Our catcher was interviewed on the radio after the game and proceeded to describe himself as a "swinger" (referring to his tendency to jump at the first pitch). That was all the scoring after that as our pitcher shut 'em down for the last 3 innings and we went on to a 4-2 win to tie the series up at a game a piece. It's now a best of 3 series and you can bet no one expected us to put up a fight like this. Our boys have been playing great. Our D has been tight. Our pitching solid. Our hitting has been good enough.

Hopefully we can continue to battle and maybe even pull off the upset.