The Spenson Star
A walk-off grand slam from Jonathan MacSaruh gave the Zebras a dramatic, if legal, victory over the Barnettsville Blue Jays. After WBC rookie Vincent Chavez pitched six shutout innings, the bullpen proceeded to quickly capitulate and blow the lead, only for Griffith Puyo-Sachar to make an inspired choice to send MacSaruh up to hit in the ninth.
"Planes come and go overhead," said the victorious if cryptic manager. "What guild maps their chaotic flight paths? From where do they draw fuel and sustenance? Besides these things, the decisions of a manager are of little import. Besides, the bases were loaded and we only needed one run, it wasn't all that decisive."
Alyssa Kinnakeet led off the bottom of the ninth with a single off of Kane Chandler. Calvin Donohue was up next, and popped up to shortstop Stefan Huber; Kinnakeet had nowhere to go. Curtis Koralov, however, would foul several pitches off before lacing an opposite field single. Kinnakeet took a wide turn at third, but was held. "In the desert," said Puyo-Sachar, "haste kills."
A frustrated Marcus Drummond brought in Theo Ford, the Blue Jays' closer, for the high-leverage situation; Ford pitched around Jenna McDonough, who drew a walk to load the bases. With only one away, Zebras fans might have hoped that the game would end without an extra shift on defense for their side. But, with Gwen Sae-Hyun removed from the lineup for Koralov, Puyo-Sachar apparently decided another catcher was called for, just in case.
Enter MacSaruh; he laced a couple fouls to scare some fans in the top of the lower deck, then deposited a hanging slider from Ford into the left-center bleachers.
"Obviously that's the kind of thing you dream of as a little kid," gushed the ebullient Belpub slugger, after the game. "I mean, more daydreams, really, my dreams involved missing teeth or fighting with my siblings. But like, travelling by portal to another planet is also definitely the kind of thing you daydream about as a little kid. Who knows, sometimes the world is cooler and more amazing than you trick yourself into seeing it as!"
The fireworks, like the inevitable bullpen implosion, overshadowed what was otherwise a very impressive debut from Chavez. "Gwen and I developed a plan for how we wanted to approach the Blue Jays and I think we handled it well," said the Frischberg northpaw. "[Willis] Pittman gave us some trouble with his hits to the track, but fortunately they were higher than deep and the outfielders had plenty of time to track them down." Asked for comment on the walk-off, however, he was somewhat less verbose: "Uh, it was stressful when they, like, changed pitchers, because...there was lots of downtime, yeah. Maybe they were hoping it'd be, like, a save situation, but it wasn't? And then there was only one out, you know, but uh, Jonathan went deep, so that was good for him? Maybe a little cliche and stuff, but you know, it happens in baseball."
Pilots take the early lead on a two-run shot to deep center by Edith Ponce, just for Han Go-Dam to answer in the bottom of the third. Eyrods then goes ahead one more time via Sop Chi-Yong's run batted in by Lyre Rostock. However, it wouldn't hold, as the Destroyers' bullpens went strong in the final four innings and Vickie Lang, the third baseman from the Apple Valley Vipers, got the go-ahead run at the bottom of the eighth. Advantage: Knetyohai. Eyrods would have to play in the Wild Card round to see if they can make it to the Semifinals.
