by Kev

An Offensive Day to Forget Stein's 7-hitter and STG Onslaught Mercy Rules the Defending Division Champs

The reigning division champion Beat came out flat as a drum head Saturday and were handed an embarrassing 18-3 mercy ruling by Spread the Glove; that's the team's first regular season mercy ruling since Finnegan's humiliated a skeleton Beat crew 23-8 with OB making his penultimate pitching start in April 2002. The new-look Glove, with Dore Stein from the Toys filling in on the mound, gave the Beat fits with their bloops and high flies that fell just beyond the reach of the Beat defense.

Q turns in the Beat's web gem of the day

To say the least, this was not the most stellar day for the Beat defense. However, when it gets down to brass balls, you can't win a softball game with only 3 runs and that was the real embarrassment here. You have to tip your cap to Dore; he kept the Beat offense off balance all day with a sky high arc and held the Beat to only seven hits and a pitiful .269 batting average; that's the fewest hits the Beat has managed in a game since June 1998 when they were held to five by Granada in the Beat's very first season in C-League.

It all started out well enough, well almost. Jacq Wilson (0-3) struck out looking to open the game (a bad omen if ever there was one) but the Beat seemed to turn it right around. Horseshoe fill-in Jayson Morris (1-3, run) singled for the Beat's first hit. Jacque (1-2, run, BB) singled and advanced to second when the throw followed Jayson to third. Brett Goldstein (1-2, 2b, run 2 RBI, BB) doubled in both runners and Jim Colletto's (1-3, RBI) single scored Brett to put the Beat up 3-0 before yours truly's tailor-made one-hopper back to the mound DP'd the Beat right out of the inning.

With the wind blowing out at Jackson 2, the Beat outfield played deep and Glove dinked and lined their way to a seven run rally putting them up 7-3 after the 1st inning. So what's four runs right? Well, it was four more than the Beat would manage for the next five innings.

The Beat attempted to get back on the board in the 2nd. With one out Rob Villegas (1-2) and Dylan Essen (1-2) both singled. Brian Greenblatt (0-2) reached on a ball dropped in left center to load the bases. But with the bases jacked, Gunnar (0-2) grounded into an inning ending 4-6-3 double play that seemed to suck the life out of the Beat offense; that was as close as the Beat would get to scoring again. The Beat would manage only one more hit for the rest of the game. For all intents and purposes, the game ended right here in the middle of the 2nd.

By the bottom of the 6th Glove was up 16-3 and needed only two runs for a mercy rule. Dore grounded back to the mound for the first out. The Glove's new leadoff hitter drove a liner to center; Jacq went back but the ball tipped off his glove for a triple. A bloop behind second fell untouched and the Glove was up 17-3. The three hitter singled and when the outfield throw was just short of nailing the lead runner at 3rd, the batter advanced. Glove's lefty was given a 4-finger salute to load the bases and with the outfield drawn in, a liner over Q's head in left put this travesty in the books.

The web gem of the day goes to Q who tracked down a deep fly to left and made a high, lunging grab going away. As for the offense, it was truly offensive. No one on the team had two hits, though a number of guys hit .500 because only half the lineup had more than two at bats. Dore was treated to five tailor made one hoppers back to the mound, two going for double plays; the Beat hit into three double plays in the first three innings. It was so bad that the beer bitch in the 5th was fill-in Jayson so we can't even collect on free beer next week. Damn!

Hopefully this will be a wake-up call like the 6-5 loss to Ronin in the spring that inspired the Beat to run the table in the second half and claim the division title. Slick Vic and JMC are up next week before the Labor Day break, so this is the Beat's chance to get the ship righted and get back on track.

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