Meridians Baseball

Meridians close out their Sunday DH schedule trying to make up one of the rainouts and end up with a long, strange day at the field ending in lightning.   Soto starts off 5 for 5 in the morning Roy Hobbs game and continues with a 2B right away in CRC play as he survives his last triple-header Sunday of 2008.   Meridians bats start out hot right away with 5 runs in the 1st inning and we look to cruise from there, but while our bats fall asleep for awhile - they chip away and make it a game.   From there on out, runs are a plenty for both teams as we end up with a football score and a loss in 8 innings.   Kraus guts out 7 innings in the sweltering heat and continues to help himself with the bat.

McClung shows up "a mess" with a new bad foot to accompany his bad arm, proven by his single off the wall.   Later in the Game 1, Blain comes up lame racing in for a blooper.  So the injured Blain replaces the hurt McClung at 1st base and we are looking years above our actual ages (Blain still gets one more hit though after the injury).   While coach and everyone else calls everyone they know to fill in, we let the game slip away.  2 last minute call-offs and a no-show leave us with just 9 for the day until Ryan finds a taker in Brandon Webb (did anybody else realize that this was his name? - we should have let him pitch...).   Brandon comes out cold and jumps into right field and then right back in to hit after years away from baseball and playing college football.   He proceeds to crack a no-doubter to left field for a 2-run homer.   Great pick-up Ryan! (hopefully that made up for his 3 broken bats on the day)   Lewis hits the hill to finish Game 1 and rotates something like 5 bats throughout the afternoon (Ohhh, Donna...).

Once we get 9 semi-healthy bodies in the lineup for Game 2, we get back to our brand of baseball.   After catching Game 1's 8 innings, Fread tosses 6 shutout innings (despite a miniscule strike zone to work with) for the 8-0 win.   Kraus booms a ball to the opposite field fence and thinks he has wheels, trying for a triple.   Soto plays 3rd base for 22 innings (including Hobbs) and only gets 3 balls all day.   Derek is now the pop-up king and no ball in the air is safe anymore as he snags two more tough ones today including a sliding grab on the 1st base side.   Drew Clim lasers a ball from center to preserve the shutout.   All Meridians contribute as we score 18 runs on the day.