2012 Little League Baseball Eastern Regional – Day 2

For the second day, the schedule remained the same – our crew had the 2:00 and 8:00 games.  Again, it was bright sun and humid, making for a sweaty afternoon.  I should mention that the staff was taking good care of both the plate umpire and the catchers, bringing them both water and towels between innings, and there were bottles of water in buckets of ice (or melted ice) in the media wells for the field umpires.  Michael McDowell had the plate for this game, and I was at second.  Maine scratched out runs in the top of the first, second and third to take a 4-0 lead, but Massachusetts got 3 in the bottom of the third and 1 in the fifth.  At the end of 6 innings we were tied 4-4, leading to the first extra-inning game of the tournament.  Maine went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 7^th.  The lead-off batter for Massachusetts walked, and reached third on a single by the second batter.  The third batter grounded to the pitcher, who did a great job of looking the runner back at third before throwing out the batter.  The fourth batter grounded to the second baseman, however, who tried for the runner at home but overthrew the catcher.  We teased Michael that he was having too much fun to want to quit after just six.

I had the plate for the 8:00 game between Connecticut and Vermont.  Although the sun was no longer an issue, it was still quite warm and very humid.  The Vermont pitcher struggled early – his pitches tended to be up or inside, and when he brought them back over the plate, the Connecticut players hit it hard.  Vermont hung on, however, thanks to some good defensive play, and after three innings trailed only by 3-1.  In the top of the fourth, however, the “wheels fell off” for Vermont.  The starting pitcher gave up six runs in the top of the fourth without recording an out – it seemed that every pitch that was a strike was driven, hard.  After a towering 3-run homer, Vermont eventually replaced him, but the next pitcher didn’t do much better, allowing seven runs on five hits and two walks.  He did record two strikeouts, both on off-speed pitches that caught the Connecticut players by surprise.  The final pitcher of the inning gave up a walk, a hit and a run before recording the final out of the inning, leaving Vermont trailing 17-1.  Vermont went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning to complete the first 10-run-rule game of the tournament.