Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Ol' Buzzards Game Report #5

Game: May 20, 2012

Valley Cats clip Buzzards' wings, 4-1

On another gorgeous Sunday, the Buzzards began the longest day of the season in Elk Grove with a 10 o'clock game against last year's champs, the Valley Cats. The game was played at the new and very large sports park next to Franklin High, the Hal Bartholomew Sports Park. Soccer matches were taking place on the adjacent (artificial grass) fields. The complex was impressive, the dugouts were nice and shaded and the bleachers were also shaded, but the baseball field dirt was soft and the mound was misshapen and too high.

This was the first game of a split double-header with the Buzzards traveling even farther south to Galt for game two in the afternoon. For the first game, the starting pitcher for the Buzzards was lefty, Dave 'Keppie' Kephart #21. This was Keppie's last baseball game before he retires after 35 years with the Placer County Water Agency at the end of this week. But more importantly to the team, was Kep fully recovered from the heavy and late celebrating at his office retirement party on Friday night.

The Valley Cats sent tough and partially crazed, right-hander Dave 'Nut Job' Nutter #12 to the mound to open the game. Nut Job looked a little meaner than normal with a swollen black-eye and scratched up face from a fairly recent fight or his story - a fall in the shower.

Leading off the first inning for the Buzzards, Dave 'Evy' Everingham hit a 2-1 pitch sharply to center field for a single. A fielder's choice and strike-out later, Taylor 'Welzy' Welz then hit the 1-1 pitch down the first base line for a single that scored Kevin 'Speedee' Krantz from second base to take an early 1-0 lead.

After that run, each team struggled to get their offense going as the pitching mastery of Kep and Nut Job made for short innings. Kep was throwing a four-hit shutout through four innings and Nutter was keeping pace with just three hits in the first four innings. The Valley Cats scored two runs in the fifth inning on four singles and one bad umpiring call at second base, which should have been runner interference on the double-play attempt. With the runner at first going on the pitch, a grounder was hit to Evy at short. Dave cleanly fielded the ball and threw to Welzy covering second. Taylor caught the ball with the runner sliding into the bag, but when the runner did a pop-up slide with TWelz throwing to first, that was the interference that was not called as a run scored.

The feral Cats scored two more in the bottom half of the seventh inning with a walk, stolen base and two singles. Meanwhile, the Buzzards were not stringing hits together to get the offense moving around the bases. The most Buzzards to bat in any inning of this game was five and there were two hits in an inning just three times. The Gold Country guys did threaten to score in the last two innings, but the Cats defense is solid and the game ended with the final score, 4-1 Valley Cats.

Buzzard pitching was excellent. Holding this offensive juggernaut to four runs should have meant a Buzzard victory. Keppie faced 34 batters in throwing 107 pitches (76 strikes & 31 balls). The whinny Cats got 11 hits and only one walk while striking out seven times.

The defense was tight with the outfield tracking down long fly balls for key outs and also showing off their arms with terrific throws. In the fourth inning, Kevin 'Speedee' Krantz nailed a Cat at home plate with a strong throw from left field and a good tag by the catcher, Scott 'Donut' Reeves. In the fifth, Caveman Kelley playing left field, threw out the runner at second base trying to stretch a single into a double, which snuffed out their VC rally. And Welzy made a fabulous over-the-shoulder catch in short right field playing second base to open the sixth frame.

The Buzzard offense was anemic with nine hits by six batters with one walk and seven strike outs. Five of the nine hits were by two Buzzards - Evy and Wook. The hit club for the first game included: Baron, Evy (3), Speedee K, Weed, Welzy and Wookie (2). The walk was issued to eagle-eye Milli. The only run scored was knocked in by Welzy with two outs in the first.

The game was hard fought and very competitive, but with a lousy ending. The nine inning game only lasted 2 ½ hours even with the fifth inning incident, where Dave Cupps of the Valley Cats was ejected from the game after being thrown out at second base from left field. Cupps was kicked out of the game for throwing his helmet and calling the ump lots of names with adjectives beginning with the letter f. He took his sweet time leaving the field and the dugout yelling expletives most of the time for all to hear.

After that long inning, a wise Ol’ Buzzard, soon to retire from water work, gathered the team in front of the dugout to remind us – don’t be that guy. Good game, tough loss and now on to game two of the split double-header in Galt.