Yep, I know it's a football cliche (God only knows who originally thought of it, and I am sure there are some basketball, Chris "Birdman" Anderson jokes to be made in here somewhere), but not as many people are aware of baseball great George Brett's variation on the "like kissing your sister" analogy. In his infinitely colloquial fashion, Brett is quoted as having said, "If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.

So needless to say, that would mean in baseball terms that the Highlanders have upgraded from our toothless grandmother to our sister... Let's just hope she's at least hot, ey?

But in this case, it was a 3-3 tie with our "sister," the Padres. And no, they did not look particularly "hot" from my vantage point... Anyways, onto the specifics of the game...

The Highlanders scored twice in the top of the first, as all-star Jack Griffin singled in a run following a Padre error which had allowed the first run to score as well. So yes, we took advantage and scored 2 unearned runs off Padre pitcher Pete Maralja...

The Padres then scored their first run in the bottom half of the first as 45 Yankees star pitcher, Darrin Ambridge made his 35 debut by promptly walking the first 4 batters! Yep, that's right ~ but guess what??? Much like the crazy record setting game that the Texas Rangers Colby Lewis had last night, Darrin then proceeded to strike out the next 2 guys and got a pop-up to end it... He also struck out a couple more in 3 innings of 1 hit ball and did not walk anyone else... So hopefully he got that outta his system with minimal damage done! And yes, I was on the verge of yanking him, but glad I didn't!

Then Hall of Famer and just an absolutely awesome guy to have on the team all the way around, Jim Ansel came on to throw a beautiful 4th and good fifth, but the Pads got a couple of hits and a SF in the 5th to take a 3-2 lead... Rob Carollo got the big hit in the inning and was 2-3 with 2 RBI's as he was also the beneficiary of the bases loaded walk in the first... Pitcher Pete Maralja was also 2-3 along with pitching a fine game in which he only gave up 3 Highlander hits...

One of those was to CDMSBL superstar Quentin Jensen, otherwise just known as Q to his beloved fan base, who is noted to have been making his 35+ debut. He went 1-2, with a walk, and an ROE to give him a 1.000% OBP... He also then came on to pitch the 6th and 7th, producing a 0.00 ERA after pitching out of a bases loaded jam in the sixth with a couple of k's...

But the biggest play he made was following his walk in the top of the 6th, he made a good, clean, slide into second to disrupt a possible dp grounder hit by John Kalinski. As Q slid into second, the runner who was on second (that would be yours truly btw as I walked and stole second), never slowed up and kept running as they tried to double John up at first and end the inning... John's hustle to first earned him not just an RBI, but also the "sister-kiss" as the throw was in the dirt and the first baseman then had to dig it out and wheel around to throw home...
Which uh yeah, he actually had me, but the throw was a hard to handle one hopper and when I slid in, the catcher could not hang on as he never had a real good handle on it...

So while I can't say their hustle paid off "big-time" since I don't think kissing your sister is exactly the "big-time," it sure beats another L! And it was just good solid baseball by those guys which earned it for us...

As Q then held them down in the bottom of the 7th w/out much fanfare and despite another Highlander error... I also wanted to note that the SS (Jhala) who normally plays for the Reds and was sub'ing for the Pads made a beautiful diving catch of a line drive in the same inning or else their would have been another runner on base and the Highs mighta pulled out a W instead... Helluva a nice play...

And a basically good game all the way around...

Including the most excellent umpires, especially the good-looking home plate ump!
Well called and timely game as darkness fell, he had no choice but to tell us to do the kissing...




-- Edited by Marcus Aurelius on Friday 11th of May 2012 11:30:26 AM

-- Edited by Marcus Aurelius on Friday 11th of May 2012 12:04:30 PM