When that one finally ended I hustled over to catch the last half of yet another extra-inning affair, Freeman v. Lee-Davis at Godwin.
L-D went with Bryan Diehr for the start and he was rolling when I arrived. Apparently he was perfect prior to my arrival, then allowed 1 walk in the 4th and 1 hit in the 5th. L-D was up 1-0. Diehr got through the 6th but Freeman nailed the ball all three batters that inning and I thought, "they need to make a change for next inning, they've figured him out." Instead, they pushed their luck. Diehr hit the first batter of the 7th, got one soft out and one hard out, and it looked like his defense might help him finish the shutout, but then Vincent Steenburgh drilled one to the fence in LCF for an RBI triple. Only then did Justin Sorokowski come in, and he got an easy ground out to keep it tied, but it was one batter too late.
Eric O'Brien for Freeman was a horse in this one. I shudder to think what his pitch count must've been, because he went all 9 and was not always efficient. But he was still firing hard to the finish, and in the end L-D couldn't muster the one run it needed.
Bottom of 9 started with a K before Logan Harvey hit a jam shot blooper into shallow LCF for a single. Sorokowski got another K and should've had two outs with just the man on first, but the catcher muffed the third strike -- a fastball waist high, outer half, just plain bounced off the mitt -- allowing the courtesy runner to take 2nd. So now the winning run is in scoring position. L-D opted to give lefty Travis Stackow an intentional walk to restore the force play options and get the righty-righty matchup with Steenburgh again. Sorokowski got a weak grounder to the 2B. Here the RTD report really didn't capture what happened. The 2B guy hesitated, looking nervous about having to get this crucial out. When he finally got to the ball the runners were getting close to their respective advance bases. 2B bobbled just a moment. SS was moving to second base for the possible toss, but with the dual delays, his momentum carried him over the bag. 2B sees him and tosses there anyway, even though there was still plenty of time to go to first. He tossed it wide and with the lead runner already at third, it was an easy turn to get him home with the winner. OUCH.
I have to think Lynch is just not feeling right, or else he would've come in at some point. That being the case, O'Brien had L-D's number, but he couldn't pitch forever, whereas Sorokowski was still very fresh at that point. Unfortunately a strategic mistake in the 7th and two critical fielding mistakes in the 9th let this one get away, though of course, just one run somewhere along the line earlier would've taken care of things as well. Lots of what ifs.
