The Braves are in the Championship game!!!
This team just never quits! In both games today, the Braves had an early lead, only to fall behind in the middle innings, then rally to win the games in the late innings.
Game 1: The Braves take a 3-1 lead into the 3rd inning, only to have the Canadian Playboys rally for 5 runs in the 4th and 3 more runs in the 5th, to take a 9-5 lead. The biggest issue, other than the 4 run deficit, was that most of the runs in the 4th and 5th were unearned. Ron Massaroni was throwing a great game, but the defense deserted him for these two frames. This usually spells defeat for most team in this kind of tournament, but not this team!
Ron got stronger and the defense went into complete shut down mode. From the 6th inning on, the Braves would not allow another run. Now the task was mounting the comeback. That task was taken care of in the bottom of the 6th. Doug O'Brey led off with a double. Then Dean Little and TJ Scorsone followed with singles; Wayne Newcomb walked, and Ralph Caputo delivered a huge 2-run double. A sacrifice fly by Jim McQuade was the first out of the inning. Scott Ross delivered another sacrafice fly , and the Braves had plated 5 runs to take a 10-9 lead. From there Ron Massaroni was unhittable and the final 3 innings were fairly uneventful. It was on to the semi-finals for the Braves, with a hard-earned 10-9 victory!
Game 2: In the semi-final game, the story was fairly similar.
The Braves scored 4 runs in the first inning, and the San Diego Pirates rallied with 1 in the first, 2 in the 3rd and 2 in the 5th.
Jerry Solomon came in at that point to relieve the Braves starter, Jim Konstantakis, That would be the end of the scoring for the team from San Diego. Their only serious threat after Jerry came in to pitch was in the 7th inning. They had the bases loaded, with one out, when their best hitter hit a humpback line drive that looked to be going over our shortstop's head. The only issue was that our shortstop was Randy Craft. Randy timed his leap perfectly and snared the liner just as it was headed past him. He turned toward second and doubled off the Pirates runner from second, to end the inning. If there were no outs at the time, this would have been a triple play.
The Braves would mount their comeback in the 6th inning.
Randy Craft led off with a single and Mike Girard, Dave Mitchell, and Doug O'Brey followed with singles of their own. Dean little drove in a run with a fielder's choice. The Braves would use this rally to turn a 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 lead. The Albany team would add an insurance run in the 8th, and the final score ended up at 8-5. This win punched the Braves ticket to the World Series Final at the Oakland A's spring training stadium (Hohokam Stadium), in Mesa, Arizona at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Our opponent will be a team from Las Vegas, and our starting pitcher in the final will be Mike Girard. Wish us luck!