Easy Living: 6/3 Summer League Opener vs CLEAR

The Underhanded Compliments, Summer 2015 edition! Front row: Kristina, Matt, Lauren, John, Triffid, Bryce; second row: Nicole, Steven, Jessica, Emily K, Colin, Gustav, Mark, Emily H, Cameron; missing: Hayden & Robert

Wednesday June 3rd was a day teeming with ominous clouds—not a promising outlook for an evening softball game. But though teammates checked in from various locations around Portland reporting steady rain throughout the day, things stayed dry over on the north/northeast borderline where both Irving Park & I are to be found—dry, that is, until I decided to walk over to the park a bit after 5:00 p.m. In fact, I walked in a steady drizzle, pausing at times to check the Underdog website & various weather sites for any relevant news. But I when I reached Irving, the Underdog sign was up, & the teams playing the 6:00 p.m. game were ready to play. The drizzle stopped, & our 7:30 game would take place as scheduled.

Indeed, our final Spring League playoff game this past Sunday & our Summer League opener were quite a study in contrasts. The Sunday game was played under a hot sun that could easily have been transported from July; the Summer League opener under skies that easily could have time traveled from April. The playoff game was tense, hard fought, even chippy; the Summer League opener was so laid back that it had the feeling of a game played at a picnic.

Our opponent was CLEAR, a company team like many in the Irving Park Weeknight Summer League; last summer we knew them as the PECI Killer Watts. Playing as the visiting team, we opened the scoring in the first inning, as Gustav led off with a double & took third on a bad throw from the outfield. With one out, Matt doubled to score Gustav, & Bryce followed with a triple to send Matt home. Emily K followed with yet another triple to drive in Bryce, & then with two outs, Colin doubled to plate Emily K. The scoring ended when yours truly singled down the third base line to score Colin, & we led 5-0. CLEAR strung together three singles to lead off the bottom of the first & score a run, but Colin, Gustav & Mark combined on a double play to take away their momentum, & immediately following that the third out was recorded on another grounder to Colin at shortstop.

We failed to score in the second despite lead off hits by Jessica & Mark, & CLEAR did plate a run in the bottom of the second to make it 5-2. Emily K observed after the inning that we were “playing their game, & we need to play ours,” which I thought was right on. That changed in the third, as with one out Gustav walked, Lauren singled & due to some poor play on their infield sent Gustav home & reached third herself; Matt then scored Lauren with a sacrifice fly, Bryce followed with a triple, Emily K hit a booming double to score Bryce, Nicole lined a single over third to send Emily K home, Colin singled, & yours truly singled to send Nicole home. Just like that it was 10-2. Then in the fourth, Jessica collected her second hit of the day, Mark singled, & Steven followed with a base hit to score Jessica.

In the bottom of the fourth their lead-off batter tripled & scored on a fielder’s choice. Following an out, CLEAR mustered another single & had a little rally going, but Colin made a fine stop on a grounder & threw to Emily K at third (who made a fine snag of the throw) to cut down the lead runner, & the next batter grounded back to Triffid at pitcher to end the inning.

The fifth was yet another big inning for us. Gustav led off with a single & took second on the throw; Lauren singled Gustav home, then Matt hit a 2-run home run. Bryce tripled (his third of the day!), & Emily K scored him with a sacrifice fly. Following another out, Colin doubled, & yours truly drove him in with a single, followed by back-to-back singles by Triffid & Jessica to score the 6th run of the inning, & just like that it was 17-3. Although the first two CLEAR batters singled in the bottom of the fifth, a double play started by Triffid, who threw to Jessica at second, who then made the turn took away any steam they had, & the game was called after 5 innings due to time.

On the official Underdog website the score is given as 14-4, which is wrong, but since only runs allowed count in the Underdog standings, no great harm is done by that. The actual final was 17-4.

Really a fun game all around. Four players went 3 for 3 (Bryce, Colin, Jessica & yours truly), while Emily K & Gustav went 2 for 2 with a sacrifice fly & a walk respectively. Although we had a big line-up for the opener, everyone had a chance to play a lot.

We’ll probably need to focus a bit more against some of our upcoming opponents, but it was fun to have some “Easy Living” following the tough playoff game.

Sorry there are no photos this week except the team photo. The light wasn’t great, & I was having too much fun to get the camera out! But we do have the team photo, which I especially like, & as a bonus, we also have a little Miles Davis for your listening pleasure.

Next week: 6/10 game vs. PC LOad Letters (& yes, that O really is capitalized!)