2007 Baseball Playoff Game #1

Jack's team, the Mariners, played in the first round of the AA play-offs against the White Sox. It was a long wild afternoon. The AA games usually last 6 innings or two hours. Today's game went 8 innings and 3 hours and 10 minutes.

With Jack's team leading 11 to 8 at the top of the sixth inning, they gave up 5 runs to fall behind by a score 11 to 13. In the bottom of the sixth, they scored two runs to tie the score at 13 to 13.

In the top of the seventh inning, the White Sox scored 4 runs to go ahead 17 to 13. In the bottom of the seventh, the Mariners scored 4 runs to tie the game at 17 to 17.

In the top of the eighth inning, the Mariners defense totally collapsed (more on this in a second) and the White Sox scored 6 runs to take a 23 to 17 lead. In the bottom half of the inning, the Mariners loaded the bases, but the last two batters struck out. Jack was on deck when the last batter struck out.

The final score was White Sox 23, Mariners 17 in eight innings.

Jack played five of the first six innings at shortstop. He made a number of nice plays, including a backhand shoetop catch going to his right on a sinking line drive and a running catch on a slicing blooper behind third base.

In the top of the seventh, running out of pitchers, the coach started the inning with someone who has not pitched very many innings for the team this year. He promptly walked the bases loaded and walked in two runs. At this point, Jack switched from shortstop to pitcher. He struck out two, gave up a fly ball to the outfield that scored two and then got the third out on a towering pop-up back to the pitcher's mound that Jack handled cleanly.

In the top of the eighth, you could see the kids starting to get tired and everything fell apart. Without Jack at shortstop, the Mariners have not been a very good defense team all season. There were three balls hit on the ground to the left side through the shortstop and third base men and one ball hit on the right side through the second base man. Additionally, there were a couple of outfield flys that were not caught. By the time the inning was over, the White Sox had scored 6 runs.

Jack went 1 for 1 at the plate with a single down the third base line. He also walked twice and was hit by a pitch for the first time this year. In this first at bat, Jack was walked on passed ball and kept running all the way to second base. He scored from second on a single by the next batter.