I haven’t blogged yet about the spring softball season, and given how today’s game was the best one this season for me personally, I thought an update in order.
The league expanded to eight teams this season, so we will have a four-team playoff at the end. Currently, we’re the number two team, with not much hope of catching number one. That spot is held by one of the new teams, and they’re good. You’re doing really well against that team if you lose by less than double digits. They’re pounding everybody. My fervent hope is after a couple of seasons they’ll get bored and move on.
Today’s game was against the other new team. We got off to a slow start, and fell behind early. We slowly battled back, and I went in to the game in the fourth inning, at third base. I didn’t see much action, fielding-wise, but was able to make it count when I did. We had a bases loaded situation, with one out, where the line drive came to me, I threw it home for the second out, and we held the runners at all three bases again. The next batter popped out to center-right, getting us out of the inning.
My first trip to the plate proved fruitful. I had yet to collect any RBIs in the previous five games; it seemed I was always coming up to the plate with a runner on first or no runners on at all, and when you’re pretty much a singles hitter, and in those situations, it doesn’t lend itself toward scoring opportunities. Today, Tiffany had just cranked a two-out double to score a run and she was at second.
First pitch, I swing and connect. Wow. Did that feel ever so good coming off the bat. Deep to center-left field, over the heads of the outfielders. A triple, with a run scored. The second-best hit I’ve had since I began playing on this team two-and-a-half years ago. (Number one would be the other triple I hit in another season, which was nearly an in-the-park home run and scored more runs.) I would score when Jennifer, our coach, knocked a single up the middle.
My second and final at-bat was a single, right up the middle in to shallow center, and it, too, scored a run. I would advance to second when the opposing pitcher walked Jen, then head from second to home when Chris D. put one in to deep center-right. The only downer was that I pulled my left quad a bit rounding third, limping to the plate.
So it takes six games for me to get a single RBI, and batting 1.000 today, I get two. The team improves to 4-2, and we remain in second place with two more games to go. I won’t play next week; we have tickets to the Stars’ playoff game, provided they don’t get swept by Colorado after a disastrous opener.
Retrophisch