Game 4: No "Joy" in Mudville

As usual, I would like to extend my thanks to those who came out for the game last night to the guys that came out to play, but especially to the fans that came out to support the team. It is great having you all there, and I am looking forward to the earlier games so that more of the families (including mine) can come out as well.

We played with our smallest group of guys so far this season, as we only had 11 that were able to play, thanks to various hindrances from travel to illness to dental work. And, for the fourth and final time of the regular season, we were once again the visiting team. It will be nice when we know we get to bat last no matter what, and hopefully it will help us when a couple games.

For those who could not make it out, I would like to give a brief recap:

I think I can speak for everyone on the team in saying that it will be nice to not be the visiting team for once when we play our next game. I think the inning in the field before batting for the first time will do us some good. We just seem to get off to slow starts, as was the case in this game. We managed to score a run in the first inning, but that was all we could muster after getting the first two guys on base. After our turn in the field, it was a manageable 1-3 game. Things kind of went downhill from there, as we just could never quite string the hits together. Guys got on base, but we just could not get enough of them in to score. Although, we had a pretty good game defensively (I did manage to overthrow Charles again at first as well as missing a bouncer that went off the heel of my glove), the other team didn’t have much trouble scoring runs. I think we could have hung with them if we had gotten a couple of key hits, as we had opportunities with guys on.

There were a few nice plays made this week, as our defense has continued to improve as the season has progressed. Josh made a couple of nice grabs in the outfield, and it seems that his throwing arm has begun to makes its presence felt (he forced a guy out at third after he picked up a little liner to the outfield). Playing third base, I get to hear the coach telling his guys to put the brakes on because Josh has the ball, which probably kept the other team from scoring several extra runs in this game. Again, I don’t think a single ball that we touched was dropped in the outfield, and the infield did a pretty good job as well.

In the end, we suffered our first lopsided defeat of the season as the final score was WPC 4 vs. Desporados 20

We are now 1-3 on the season, but look to turn things around in a couple of weeks (we are off next week due to Spring Break) as we have our first game as the home team. Whatever happens, it should be another fun time of recreation and fellowship, and I hope to see you all there.