Andre Chiefs

Malden, MA- The Chiefs faced two very difficult opponents on Monday night at Maplewood Park. The weather and the Lexington Blue Sox. 

They beat both.
  
On the weather front, Maplewood somehow escaped a solid line of thunderstorms that were marching right toward it just before the scheduled first pitch. Oh, the rains did eventually come in the bottom of the fifth and remained steady the rest of the way, but held off just long enough to allow the game to be played in its entirety.

On the baseball side of things, the Chiefs got a light’s out six inning performance from southpaw Mitchell Clegg and erupted for six runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, breaking open a 1-1 game, on the way to a solid 7-3 win.

The Chiefs took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning when Tony Serino drew a walk off Blue Sox starter Drew Leenhouts. Serino moved to second on a Mike Barbati single and scored when Mike Gedman’s grounder was thrown away.

The Blue Sox tied things up in the top of the second when Alex Voitik singled, was sacrificed to second, moved to third on groundout, and then scored on a wild pitch.

Leenhouts kept the Chiefs scoreless in both the second and third innings. Clegg had two K’s in the Blue Sox third, and was aided by a sparkling 3-6-3 doubleplay to end the top of fourth.

Reliever Chris Law came on for Leenhouts and blanked the Chiefs in the home half of the fourth.

Clegg had two more strikeouts in the top of fifth as the game moved to the bottom of the inning still tied at 1-1.

The Chiefs broke things open when they sent 10 men to the plate in the bottom of the fifth, scoring six times, to take a 7-1 lead as the rain began falling at a pretty decent pace. Nate Witkowski got things started with a line single to left off Law. Mike Burgoyne drew a walk and everyone was safe and the bases were loaded after Serino beat out a perfectly placed bunt. The Sox got the first out when Barbati grounded to Ross Curley at shortstop who fired home to force Witkowski. Johnny Welch was next and he hit a flare off the glove off second baseman Chris Ruocco in short right-field, that scored Burgoyne to make it 2-1, and was scored as a fielder’s choice RBI when Barbati was forced out at second. With runners on the corners, Serino was awarded home on a Law balk that increased the lead to 3-1. Gedman gave the Chiefs a 5-1 advantage when he drilled a Law offering over the right field fence, scoring Welch ahead of him. Peter Copa and Shane Stande followed with consecutive singles. Mike Andre then drilled an RBI single to right that skipped by Julian Alvarez all the way to the fence, scoring Copa and Stande, and allowing Andre to go all the way to third. With the rain falling, Bill Christopher took over for Law and got Witkowski on a fly to center to end the big inning with the Chiefs in front 7-1.

Clegg cruised through the top of the sixth with a strikeout and two grounders and Christopher had two K’s in the bottom of the inning.

The Sox made things a little interesting against Chiefs’ reliever Tim Dunphy in the top of the seventh. Dunphy walked both Alvarez and pinch-hitter Sam Goodwin-Boyd to open the inning. Kyle Allen pinch hit for Josue Feliciano and reached when Copa couldn’t handle his hard chopper, allowing Alvarez to score, making it 7-2 with still nobody out. Dorian Rojas then hit for John Puttress and delivered Goodwin-Boyd with the third run with a sacrifice fly to right. Dunphy settled in and preserved the win when he struck out Justin Silvestro, and then got Ruocco on fly ball, to end the game.

Clegg. 1-0 got the win. He struck out seven and allowed just three hits in 6.0 innings.

Boxscore at www.intercityleaguebaseball.com

Chiefs Chatter….Stande’s fifth inning single was the first of his ICL career…..For Clegg, it was his 15th win in a Chiefs’ uniform……The Chiefs return to Maplewood on Wednesday at 8:15 PM to meet the Watertown Reds…..On Saturday, they play the Reading Bulldogs in the ICL’s annual Jerie DeAngelis Memorial Day of Baseball at Lexington High at 11:00 AM……
Bruce Tillman for ICL Baseball
Bruce Hack-Statistics