Game Summary for Padres VS Royals
Sunday June 8th. 2008 at Montgomery High School
 The
sports world was rocked last week with the biggest scandal of the
year. Steroids? Fixing games? Videotaping opponent's signs? Nope,
all pale in comparison to the word out of the league commissioner,
Rick Cantor's office, that the Nationals had been playing all last
year and this with three underage players on their roster. One,
Roy Sisk, was the rookie of the year in 2007, and was arguably the
best player in the league. Another was Derrick Delatorre, 3-0 this
season with a 1.00 ERA, certainly no slouch.
As a result, the Nationals have forfeited
all games, had the three players kicked out of the league with further
penalties maybe forthcoming. While the Pads are coming off a week
in which they lost both games on the field to the Nats, they were
awarded two Wins. This completely altered the landscape of the playoff
picture, putting them squarely in fourth place by points, and second
by record.
This week, they faced the 8th place Royals,
whom they had beaten in the 5th game of the season in a hard fought
battle, 7-5. So, the Friars
knew that the Royals were no pushovers, despite their record. Starting
for the Royals, was John Nevin, and from the beginning of the game
it looked like a tough road to hoe for the Friars, as he struck
out 11 over the first 6 innings, allowing no runs to this point.
Meanwhile the Royals scratched out two runs on six hits off Pad's
starter Kevin "K2" Kennedy. So,
going into the top of the seventh, the Friars were down 2-0, fortunately,
Nevin was showing signs of tiring, having walked two of the past
seven batters faced.
Fisher led off the inning with a base
hit up the middle and promptly stole second. When Jmash
followed that up with a base hit of his own to left center, Fisher
motored home and the Padres were on the board. A few batters later,
JWalls lined a single to left, driving
in JMash. Unfortunately, this was all
the Pads would get, with the moral victory that they had tied the
game up with 2 and a half to play. However, the Royals weren't about
to take another defeat lying down, as they charged back into the
lead, scoring 2 in the seventh and three in the eighth, making the
score 7-2 going into the top of the ninth.
The Pads had the top of the order up, and
things started promisingly with Fisher
working a walk, thus pushing the Royals starter, Nevin, out of the
game. The Royals brought in junk ball artist Benjamin Gaidmore to
close it out, whom the Pads had faced and solved in the previously
alluded to game 5 victory.
Using this knowledge, JMash drew a walk,
which put men on first and second with no outs. This brought Justin
"JuMash" Masciorini to the plate. On the first pitch,
he hit a screaming line drive up the middle. Unfortunately, Gaidmore
got his glove on it, deflecting it to the secondbaseman who turned
the improbable 1-4-6-3 double play, all but dashing the hope of
a comeback. What happened next was
the most improbable meltdown this reporter has ever seen or even
imagined.
 We're
taking LARGE meltdown, something on the scale of Three
Mile Island or Chernobyl.
The next batter, Louie Bruno, hit aneasy
grounder to first that appeared to be the game ender, however the
first baseman dropped, it and he was safe, allowing the third run
to score. JWalls walked, Joe
Wilson singled, driving in Bruno, Norman
singled, driving in JWalls, Ford
walked, Kennedy singled, driving in Wilson.
At this point, the bases were loaded, and the tying run was at third,
in the cleats of Norman, with Andy
"Wags" Wagoner at the plate. With a mighty swing of
the bat, the Friar Faithful's collective hearts sank, as Wags
hit a mile high popup to third. Miraculously, the baseball gods
were smiling on the Friars this day, as the ball glanced off the
thirdbaseman's glove and everyone was safe, allowing the tying run
to score! Gaidmore was so shaken up by this that he walked the next
two batters, forcing in two more runs, before enticing Jumash
to fly out to center for the final out.
So, with Jason Masciorini
warming up in the bullpen, Kennedy came
out in the bottom half of the ninth in an attempt to earn his first
complete game of the season and preserve the victory. It turned
out that there would be no need for JMash,
as the Royals mounted a moderate threat, getting runners to first
and second with two outs, before 6th place batter Jonny Rossi popped
out to Norman to end the game, with the score
9-7 Padres.
This week's edition of TWIPB notes (as provided
by roaming reporter Dave Giugni):
With their overwhelming speed and power,
JMash and Bruno are tied for the Padre Team record for......you
guessed it....Triples. Each has a career total of 3. We will give
credit to Louie even though two of his 3B's came with another team
and one of those was in the 35+ league where every one is a little
older and slower. Of course we all know that if Louie got a three
bagger out of it, JMash would have had an inside the park homer.
So congratulations "Triple Man", go and grab yourself
a cold Bud Light.
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