Saturday, February 12, 2005 |
USC 4, Long Beach State 3
So did we talk after the game; but last things first. The Dirtbags played again at Blair Field, the tidy little pitcher's park by the sea. Since Friday night's rainout pushed the rotation around, both teams had their number ones going; for the Beach, it was Cesar Ramos, last year's number two to Dream, got the nod against USC's Ian Kennedy.
Oh, they missed Jered. The pregame newsletter, handed out with the program, wrote that "the 2004 Dirtbags could care less about their occaisional offense as long as pitching and defense save the day." You'd never know most of last year's players had returned; the Long Beach squad produced eight hits on the afternoon, but most of them were ineffective singles mixed harmlessly through several innings against Kennedy. The USC pitcher's only earned run came on a fifth inning balk, yet the box score didn't charge him for it, in contradiction to section 10.18 (a) of the official rules, the relevant part of which reads
An earned run shall be charged every time a runner reaches home base by the aid of safe hits, sacrifice bunts, a sacrifice fly, stolen bases, putouts, fielder's choices, bases on balls, hit batters, balks or wild pitches (including a wild pitch on third strike which permits a batter to reach first base) before fielding chances have been offered to put out the offensive team. For the purpose of this rule, a defensive interference penalty shall be construed as a fielding chance.Ramos, who gave up a fusillade of hits in the first half of the game, was replaced by Marco Estrada, who retired the side in order four straight innings in the sixth and after. In all, a grand time, and I must say I enjoyed seeing Rich again.
Update: Niall Adler, presumably the scorer for the game that day, mentioned that Bradley got to third on an error, thus negating the negative consequences of Kennedy's balk on his stats. So goes my education in the intricacies of baseball's lawyering.
Blog Postscriptum: I just noticed a couple Dirtbag-related blogs. First, lurking off to the side of the Dirtbag homepage: the Dirtbag Blog. And, the pregame notes I alluded to earlier can be found in full on Dr. Dan's Diamond Dust. Links to be added to the blogroll, presently.
Of the position players eight either weren't in town last year or seldom played--guys like Longoria, Huizar, Bradley, Godfret Sarti, Hernandez, Jones and the lightly used Mr. Cruz...that would mean that in the box three regulars only..."but again I enjoy the thoughtful items you all post." Dan B
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