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Bulls win a weird one |
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Written by Dale Woodard
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Friday, 03 July 2009 |
Was it a baseball game or Bizarro World?
Fans making the trek out to Spitz Stadium to watch the Lethbridge Bulls host the Medicine Hat Mavericks in Western Major Baseball League action may have been wondering just that.
Why?
Probably because the assortment of errors, blown leads, regained leads, a scorecard snafu, a borderline streaker and a nearly-decapitated first base umpire had fans looking skyward, wondering if there was a full moon.
While the moon was almost full, amid all the wackiness the Bulls managed to hang on for a 6-4 victory that closes out their eight-game homestand at 7-1 and improves them to 15-12.
All of that despite an error on an otherwise routine play that briefly handed Medicine Hat a 3-1 lead, a batting order gaffe that required Joel Blake to bat twice in a row, a scorching foul shot that seemed like it was destined for first base umpire Lee Knox’ head and one underwear-clad fan who decided to take advantage of the warm summer weather and go cartwheeling into centre field.
Oh, and there was a baseball game played as well.
While it’s not a win that will go onto the highlight reel, Bulls’ head coach Scott Rhodes said they’ll take it.
"It wasn't a great ball game, but we came out on top,” said Rhodes. ”You have to take the ugly ones with the good ones. We’re going to take it and run, it wasn't pretty, but we bounced back from our game (last night) and decided to put the ball in play in the fifth."
The Bulls hit the board first when Eric Dorton led off with a single before stealing second and third and scoring on a Zach Rhodes double down the first base line.
Bulls starting pitcher Alex Tufts ran into a bit of trouble in the third inning when the Mavericks loaded the bases.
However, the Bulls hurler managed to induce a two-out Jeff Hughes fly ball to centre field to end the inning and dodge the bullet.
But Medicine Hat cashed in on their next chance that briefly gave them the lead in the sixth inning.
Hughes scored on a single to left field from Jaimie Ayala to tie the game at 1-1.
Then with Cam Rittinger on second and Ayala on second, Tufts reeled in a routine comeback grounder off the bat of Lee Anderson and took a few steps towards first to make the routine play to end the inning. Instead, Tufts’ toss to first sailed wide, allowing Rittinger and Ayala to score and put Medicine Hat up 3-1.
"It was completely the sun,” said Rhodes. ”Alex came and said 'Why didn't I underhand flip that?' It was just one of those things.”
The bizarre error aside, the Bulls cashed in a on a few Mavericks errors in their half of the sixth to regain the lead.
Dorton scored on a throwing error from third base to first to cut Medicine Hat’s lead to 3-2.
With Dustin Bissonette on third and Josh Lowden on second Jesse Sawyer ripped a double to left field to score both runners and put Lethbridge back up 4-3.
Another Mavericks throwing error scored Sawyer to hand the Bulls a 5-3 lead before the batting order saga began.
With Bissonette on second Blake sent a grounder to right field to double the Bulls lead.
But after a brief meeting it was determined that Jamie Mitchell was due to bat, not Blake, handing Lethbridge their second out of the inning, placing Hornstra back at second, rolling the score back to 5-3 and putting Blake up to bat once again.
He delivered, drilling a shot to centre field that scored Hornstra — again — to make it 6-3 Bulls.
”The mess up I made with the score card, for Joel Blake to come up and get a base hit and then come back in and get another base hit is just pulling his weight. He did a great job for us,” said Blake.
The antics didn’t end there.
In the eighth inning Hornstra teed off on a foul shot that Knox was just able to avoid before the undie-clad fan decided to put on his own display in the ninth.
"I think out team has come together a little bit,” said Rhodes. ”I really don't look for a change when we're on the road. It's kind of where we should have been all season. Our pitching is better than average. We have some great starters in our pitchers and our closers come in and we're confident in them and they're confident. We're excited where we're at right now."
Tufts earned the win on the hill for the Bulls, who continued to get good efforts from their starters.
"We got 16 or 17 strikeouts against a very good team,” said Rhodes. ”We can't ask for more out of our starters. They're doing a great job, hopefully they can continue to do what they've been doing. They've really been taking care of themselves.”
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