2008 Planetary Extreme Championship Recap: Game 2

[John]

Another crowd of just over 30,000 showed up at Gnat Field to cheer on their Sandgnats in game 2 of the Planetary Extreme Championship. The below-capacity attendance had to be disappointing to Crystal Lake’s front office. The Gnats are PEBA’s best team record-wise, both games were held on the weekend and the chilly temperatures (46° Friday, 38° last night) shouldn’t have impacted advance ticket sales. Some are placing the blame on a late start to the PEC that could see the series stretch into November if it goes the distance. It will be interesting to see if New Orleans can become the first host city to sell out a PEC game when the series arrives there on Monday night.

Everybody was expecting pitching to dominate this series and so far the teams haven’t disappointed. Friday night it was Norberto “Pickles” Pacheco shutting out the Trendsetters for 7.1 innings. Last night New Orleans starter Edward Coleman turned the tables on Crystal Lake. Coleman wasn’t nearly as dominant as Pickles but was even more efficient. Bewildering the Gnats with his mid-80s “fastball” all night long, Coleman was able to go the distance in New Orleans 4-1 victory.

The Trendsetters opened the scoring with a run in the top of the 2nd, though it could have been so much more. Base running blunders cost New Orleans. First, Augusto Valdéz was gunned down trying to stretch a single into a double by cannon-armed Mark Frazier. Leonard Martin immediately followed with a two-out double that would have scored Valdéz. After a walk to Jorge Ruíz, #9 hitter Floyd Gates laced a ball down the left field line that just barely stayed fair. Martin scored easily, but Gnats left fielder Shunso Kichida did a good job of hustling over and playing the ball as it caromed off the side wall. He made a strong throw to third and the sliding Ruíz was ruled out on a bang-bang play. Trendsetters skipper David Parks argued to no avail. Replays seemed to show that the third base umpire did indeed get the call right.

The Gnats, fired up by wriggling out the jam, came out swinging in the bottom half of the inning. Héctor Castillo led off with a single. That was followed by a laser blast off the bat of Manny López that bounced off the top of the wall in right-center, missing out on being a 2-run homer by inches. Still, the double placed Gnats at second and third with nobody out, and when Rex Groves followed with an RBI single it looked like Crystal Lake was in for a big inning. Instead, Coleman pulled off a Houdini act of his own. With the infield playing in, Trendsetters 2B Gates was able to jump up and snare a smash by Jesús Márquez and prevent López from scoring from third. Coleman was then able to induce Kichida to hit into a 6-3 double play to end the inning and preserve the tie.

There’s no getting around it: Crystal Lake manager Wayne Kedsch is terrified of Todd Hansen. Apparently he’s not terrified of people second-guessing his decisions, however. Despite coming under heavy criticism for intentionally walking Hansen in game 1, Kedsch repeated the move not once but twice in game 2. This despite the fact that Hansen is hitting just .233 in the playoffs (0-6 in this series), possesses no power whatsoever and is a much greater threat once he reaches the bases due to his blazing speed.

While the move worked Friday night, Kedsch will be facing additional scrutiny after last night’s less successful outcomes. The first walk came after Gates led off the 5th with a single and stole second on a 1-0 count. With first base freed up, Kedsch decided to set up a double play possibility by walking Hansen. His counterpart Parks responded by ordering a sacrifice bunt from Dave Lewis. With first base again empty, just one out and star slugger Jeff Cline striding to the plate, another intentional walk seemed to make sense. Apparently less intimidated by Cline than by Hansen, Kedsch chose to go after the #3 hitter. Cline answered with an RBI groundout to third. It was the only run scored in the inning but it ultimately proved to be the game-winner.

Crystal Lake led off the bottom half of the 5th with a Groves walk and a Márquez infield single. Back-to-back strikeouts of Kichida and Powell Clark followed by a fly out from Anthony Pace ended the threat. And that was all she wrote for the Gnats bats on this night. Other than a one-out error that allowed Frazier to reach in the 6th inning, no more Gnats would reach base in the game. Coleman was breezing, needing just 7 pitches in the 3rd and 4th innings, 0 in the 6th, 9 in the 7th and 8 in the 8th. No one would mistake the performance for “Pickles” Pacheco’s mastery the night before – Coleman throws 7-8 MPH slower and has about half the MPH separation between his fastball and off-speed pitches than Pickles does – but Crystal Lake batters still couldn’t solve him.

The third Trendsetters run of the game came in the 7th. After the surprising Gates sent a one-out double to the wall in right in center – much to the delight of his fan club, “The Great Gatesbys” – Kedsch again ordered Hansen intentionally walked. The move failed to pay off for a second time when the next hitter, Lewis, lined a single to left that scored Gates. New Orleans final run would come in the 8th on a 406’ home run by Valdéz. The homer was the first by either team in the series.

Game time was 2 hours, 37 minutes. The series moves to New Frontier Park in New Orleans for Game 3 Monday night. Start time is 7:05 PM. Pitching for Crystal Lake will be Bryan “Booker” Stewart. Staff ace Conan McCullough is expected to start for the Trendsetters.

[Duane]

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