An early blowout defeat isn't always the worst thing in the world.
The Sarzonian national baseball team were on the wrong end of a 13-2 decision in the first match of a three-match series away to Hannasea at The Orange Bowl in Kent. The swirling winds and the deep left field fences made it nigh on impossible for anyone to find the seats, as even designated hitter Luke Brinkley watched a fly ball to left field that would have easily cleared the fence in Fleetwood Park die in the glove of Choughs left fielder Jason Mathis well before the warning track.
Manager Geoff Yancey strode up to the Banijan home plate umpire after the bottom of the fifth with his team trailing by 13 runs and simply stated, "I'm playing this entire series under protest. The conditions at this ballpark are not fit for international competition."
"Lemme guess. You want me to toss you to make it look good," the umpire responded.
"Actually, that might not be a bad idea, except I'm automatically suspended if I get tossed."
"That's right. Sarzonian sporting policy. OK, still wanna do it anyway?"
"Yeah. But what do we argue about?"
"I dunno. Let's start yelling about favourite recipes or somesuch."
"Do a comparison of Banijan vs. Sarzonian cuisine?"
"Sounds good to me."
The two men began yelling and gesturing, but the conversation was one that otherwise would have been punctuated with laughs had it occurred at the hotel bar following the match. Finally, though, the umpire said, "ready?" and Yancey said, "yeah." Then the umpire ran Yancey, who then proceeded to kick the dirt and slam his cap to the ground before kicking that. The small section of Sarzonia supporters wearing navy-coloured parkas began cheering wildly as Yancey appeared to be getting his money's worth.
For Matchday 5, Alton Long would get the start as bench coach Brad Howland ran the proceedings with Yancey suspended for the match. He pitched surprisingly well after conceding two first-inning runs and got the team into the eighth inning before set-up man Scott Lassiter and closer Tyrell Douglass slammed the door for the win. In the rubber match of the series, Yancey was back and so, too, was Jeff Parrish, who this time would not allow Yancey to remove him from the match until the ninth inning when he allowed his only walk with one out. That's when Yancey went right back to Douglass, whose first pitch resulted in a Jesse Lowe double play grounder. Second baseman Ian Danielson knew he had time to retire the slow-footed first baseman despite shortstop Christine Andersen briefly struggling to get the ball out of her glove. The grounder ended the match with Sarzonia claiming a hold on top of the Group C table in spite of a negative run differential.
As for Sarzonia, they would return to Fleetwood Park to take on Aji No Moto in a three-match set. It gave Yancey a chance to discuss Sarzonia's baseball philosophy. In one sense, they weren't 100 percent traditional, as they employed the designated hitter with Yancey's roots being that of a hitting coach who became bench coach under Delaclav Khalil Dennis. On the other hand, though, Yancey didn't really care too much about analytics. He tended to prefer the traditional ideas of stacking a lineup with right handed hitters when facing a deadly lefty. On rare occasions when he'd send up a lefty hitter against a left handed pitcher, it would be in a situation where the hitter made said pitcher his bitch at the plate.
Right now, Sarzonia were in the exact same place after six matches of this 53rd edition of the World Baseball Classic that they were after six matches of the previous edition. They were 4-2. But this time feels vastly different despite the blowout defeat in Game 1 of the Hannasea series. It was up to Yancey to make sure this Classic didn't just feel different.
