Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Buzzards Game Report #8

May 23, 2010

Cats Scratch Buzzards, 5-1

On a cool and breezy Sunday morning, the Buzzards gathered at Bradshaw Christian High School in Elk Grove to take on the league leading Valley Cats. To make up for the rain-out of the third game of the season, the week after Easter, a double dip of baseball was scheduled with the first game starting at 10:15.

The ball field, Greg Vaughn Field, was in real good shape. It was tightly groomed for a fast field and no weeds in sight. The real dugouts are supposed to offer shade on the normal hot days in Elk Grove, but today they acted as a nice wind block to the relentless gusty winds of the open plains of southern Sacramento County.

The Ol’ Buzzards are still not at full strength, missing regulars Jim Milligan and Jim Wagner, so a twin bill with other key players also missing, Dave Kephart (Cameron’s graduation from SF State), Ray Henry (eye injury), Fred O’Donoghue (second game only) and Bob Wooden (first game only), made for an interesting day. The Valley Cats get a little lucky and catch the Gold Country Buzzards short-handed for this double header.

On the mound for the Valley Cats was tough right-hander, Dave Nutter, in the black vest jersey with maroon sleeves and gray pants uniform, wearing #12. The Buzzards starting pitcher was the chiseled righty, Bob “Woody” Wooden #22, looking good in the Buzzard orange vest with black sleeves on gray pants uniform and with his short pony tail sticking out the back of the orange-billed black Buzzard hat. Woody is 2-0 this season with a 2.50 ERA.

Both teams led off the first inning with base hits and both teams stranded the runner – Nutter with two strikeouts and Woody got a nice looking 4-6-3 double play in the first frame. In the second inning, both teams went 1-2-3. In the third, the Cats put together four bloop hits and two walks for four runs to take an early lead. The Buzzards appeared to bring their sleepy bats to this game and scored the only run of the game in the sixth inning.

Nutter struck out the side in the sixth, but in between Welzy walked on a full-count after fouling off three pitches. Next, Dan “Wookie” Wukmir singled to right field. Woody followed by swinging at the first pitch and hitting a line drive into left, scoring T-Welz from second base. With runners at first and third, Woody stole second to set up a bigger inning. However, Nutter then struck out the next two Buzzards, taking advantage of the ump’s generous low strike zone that got two of the K’s looking in the inning. Nutter struck out 10 batters in the game, four looking and the others swinging, mostly at pitches out of the zone due to the big strike zone with two strikes.

The Valley Cats scored their final run in the bottom of the sixth with back-to-back doubles with one out. The Buzzards had as many hits in the game as the Cats with eight each, but the hits were spread over five innings. The Cats bunched their hits for maximum effect in this game. Woody pitched a solid nine inning game. Many of the eight hits were dying-quail shots that frustratingly fell for base hits.

Woody threw 112 pitches (78 strikes & 34 balls) in facing 34 batters, with the eight hits and two walks while striking out six. Great job in holding down a strong offensive team with a good mix of speeds and pitches. The Valley Cats were off balance all day at the plate. Ya just can’t win many games only scoring one run.

The defense was error-free and played well from the start including a nice 4-6-3 double play in the first inning (Wookie to Welzy to Baker). That play happened after the lead-off batter singled and was called safe, two batters later, on a clearly blown call of a force out at second base. In the fourth inning, Mike “Bake” Baker knocked down a tough grounder at first base and then tossed the ball to a covering Woody in a close play with Bob bare-handing the catch.

The Buzzard outfielders, Barry “Brooklyn” Forman, Don “Redondo” Colbert, Scott “Donut” Reeves and Pete “Baron” Von Zboray dealt with the wind and made the plays. The infield defense of Mark “Ronnie” Wronski at third, Welzy covering short, Wook at second and Bake at first base, all had assists for one-third of this games’ outs. Charles “CJ” Jackson performed solidly behind the plate.

The Buzzards’ bats were too quiet in game one. Only four batters got the eight hits, Bake, Welzy-2, Wookie-2, and Woody-3. Only four Buzzard batters did not strike out at least once. Dave Nutter is a good pitcher, but we made him look like Cy Young in this game.

Next game in 30 minutes.