If Only They Had Actually Been Injured.

Howdy, A’s,

Going forward, I’m going to do a better job screening our potential opponents.  For example, a fairly innocuous question such as “Are you guys a professional softball team?” might have spared us last night’s drubbing.  But at least we got to send Mike off in our own inimitable A’s fashion.  Injured Reserves >16, A’s 2.  (Note: I am again winging this sans scorebook).

Hats off to Brian Patterson, who hits well all game and scored half of our runs.  And a very fond farewell to Mike, who is taking his talents to Boston, where he’ll spend the next several months waiting for his knees to stop hurting. 

Okay, recap time.  For those of you who weren’t there, it’ll be helpful to understand who we played.  Imagine that there’s some laboratory somewhere that churns out clones of nine-time Pro Bowl safety John Lynch, and then trains those clones to play softball until they turn 26, and then registers them in the Congressional Softball League.  That’s the Injured Reserves, who I’m guessing have never been injured, ever.  The SOBs hit a series of uncatchable line drives and plate five runs before we can record an out, and log a total of 13 by the bottom of the third.  Wild Wild Wes, whose ERA is definitely in the tank now, started to strategically throw the ball the one place they couldn’t hit it—behind them.  Meanwhile, we learn that making solid contact doesn’t pay, as their defense Hoovers up pretty much everything we hit.  That’s innings 1-3.

The rest of the game proceeds more humanely.  We play solid D and hold them to a few more runs, we score a couple of our own—one of which is Mike’s final RBI of the season (but hopefully not as an A), a sac fly that drove in Pattycakes—and got some solid contributions from Robyn, Sandy and newcomer Andrew.  A special shout-out is also in order to MattMuffin, who did an admirable job holding down first base.  Honestly, A’s, if we play our next three games as well as we played last night, we could win all three of them.  No, seriously.  The Best Performance In A Blowout Award goes to us for last night’s game.

Speaking of next games, we’ve got one on Tuesday.  Same bat time, same bat channel.  We won’t be playing the Sons of Pitches, though, as they’ve been decommissioned, as well (it’s going around, I guess).  Instead, I’ll try to set up a game with The Society for Trifocal Wearers or The National Peglegged Persons Association.  Stay tuned.  Until then,

Effing A, Alex