The Week of Baseball

I'll take a break from the vacation reporting to talk about this past week, which can be summed up in one word: baseball. This week Brennan had games Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. No practice, though, so I guess we really slacked off there. Starting the week, we were 1 - 2. To briefly recap, the first game was close, the second game the team as a whole really didn't play well at all and lost, and then the third game they won.

Tuesday's game was against the Diamondbacks, the first place team in the league. It was a good, hard game, closer than the final score, but in the end the Diamondbacks hit it more consistently to where we weren't than we did, and the Tigers lost, 15 - 9.

Wednesday's game was against the Rays, the team we lost to in the aforementioned, "not our best game". This was the game where our defense really started to come into its own, with several good plays. Offensively, the Tigers scored four in the first and five (the maximum per inning) in the second, and then held on from there to win, 9 - 4.

Thursday was baseball-free, except Brennan and I did play some catch and work on some bunting, as he had not done as well with that the last couple of games.

Friday was the White Sox, the team we lost to in our first game. I don't remember a lot of details. Brennan made two great bunts his first two times up, although one of those he was thrown out on a close play at first (but moved up a runner). And he did score a run, sliding in at home to beat a throw. (OK, so he slid about two feet too soon...). And in the end, although the hitting wasn't great, the Tigers won (but I don't remember the final score. Very low-scoring, though...).

After the game, most of the team went to Mr. Gatti's (a buffet pizza place with a lot of arcade games). Jessie and Brennan had a lot of fun there. Of course, that meant we were up late.

Saturday morning was an early start, because the last game of the week started at 10 AM. Once more, it was against the Diamondbacks. The game didn't start super, with only one hit in the first. The defense did well, but pretty soon the Tigers were down, 4 - 1. The bottom of the order started making up some ground (including a nice bunt from Brennan that scored at least one, and maybe two runs), and after the top of the third inning it was 5 - 4 Tigers. The Diamondbacks came back to tie it in the bottom of the inning. Brennan led off the fourth with another bunt single. He made it to third, but the third out was made before he could score. The bottom of the inning was a great defensive display. Only one Diamondback reached base, and we then got a double play on a pop out to the first baseman. The Tigers scored a run in the fifth, and then with more great defense retired the Diamondbacks in order to make it 6 - 5 Tigers. The league (as I mentioned) has a five-run-per-inning rule, so we were hoping to get the five runs and end the game in the sixth (especially since the Diamondbacks had the top of their order coming up in the bottom half of the inning).

Our first batter got a hit. He stole second. The second batter grounded out, but moved the runner to third. Brennan came up to bat. Once again, he was asked to bunt. The first attempt was foul. The second one came straight off his bat and into Brennan's forehead (just under his helmet). Brennan barely reacted, and took off for first. Of course, as he was still in the batter's box, it was a foul ball. Once he reached first and knew it was foul, it took him a few minutes to recover (understandably), but then he headed back to the plate. Swinging away now, with two strikes, he hit it short down the first base line (basically, a swinging bunt). The pitcher fielded the ball, made a swipe at Brennan (who was already past him) and then tried to throw to first. But by this time, Brennan was just reaching the bag and the throw was off. In fact, it hit Brennan in the back of his batting helmet and bounced away from the first baseman. Meanwhile, the runner on third was scoring to make it 7 - 5. We were very proud of Brennan for handling everything so well. He stole second, moved up to third on another ground out, but then the next batter got out.

Now it was up to the defense. I believe the first out was a pop up to the second baseman. The next batter hit a grounder up the middle. Our shortstop made a diving grab over second, but had no chance to make a throw. But no worries, because the next two batters both hit grounders just to the left of the shortstop, and in both cases he easily fielded the grounder and stepped on second.

After the game, Brennan was awarded the game ball for his three hits, and especially for his toughness in getting an important hit under trying and painful circumstances when the team really needed it.