WE MIGHT HAVE YOU THIS TIME

Yes, we finally found a way to win a game and surprisingly enough, it involved hitting the ball and catching it with regularity. Who knew? If someone had told us, we would have tried it.

We beat the South Philly Tap Room 15-4 on Tuesday at Dairy 4 to break a five-game losing streak and

even though the Tap was playing a slightly depleted lineup, we’ll still take it. We’ve been there ourselves this season.

The win improved our playoff seeding although it’s impossible to tell exactly how yet. Depending on a few things, we could finish in a three-way tie for sixth with the Tap and the Green Tambourine, and we hold

all the tiebreakers there, so that would mean a first-round bye and no playoff until Tuesday, July 22. Otherwise, we still might open Monday, July 21 with a play-in game. So keep the week as free as possible.

Let’s start at the beginning. Since our last update, we played Catahoula twice before the Tap game and that was as much fun as usual. The Cajun Dogs beat us 20-9 and 10-4 and even though the scores were different, the games were pretty much the same.

To beat Catahoula, we have to play nearly flawlessly in the field and not give extra outs and extra runs. We missed “flawless” by a lot in both of these games.

In the first game, the Hoagiefest preliminary at Dairy 4, we made two errors in the first inning and the Refugees jumped out to a 6-0 lead. We scampered back to tie the game 8-8 after three innings, but then allowed five more runs in the fourth, aided by five errors, according to the scorebook. That’s a lot. Catahoula got another seven runs in the sixth and, well, we weren’t keeping up very well.

The P&P scored just one run and brought only 18 to the plate in our final four at-bats. We did get four hits from Steve Lynch, three from George Miller, Mark Nevins and Chip Proctor, two from Chris Brennan and a home run from Chris Yasiejko.

Then came Hoagiefest, which was fun and lasted until 1:30 a.m., according to those who weren’t going to leave until the cops showed up. Very good hoagies, courtesy of Sarcone’s and Phyllis, and the usual amount of controlled burning of the Dairy 2 infield.

We got Catahoula again on Monday at Edgeley 4 and, just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, gave up five unearned

runs in the first, two more in the third and I think their final three runs in the fifth were earned, but you can never tell. Nick hit a home run to left field in that inning that was Elmeresque, about as far as you can hit a ball with a wood bat. So, I’m pretty sure that one was earned.

Who the hell is this Neilson guy?

On the P&P side of the sheet, we didn’t score until the seventh inning, which was a little late. We had just four hits, all singles, in our first six at-bats, and finished with only nine hits for the game and one extra-base hit, a double by Lynch. Donlen had two hits. Nobody else had more than one. Lynch got tagged out at the plate by Casey on this ridiculous behind-the-back swipe and that was annoying and then we left.

OK, the Tap game. We were bolstered by the return of Julie Dugan and B.J. Clark and had our regular super sub Amandah Povilitus on hand for the first part of the game as well. For one of the few times this season, we were able to field what might be our best defense and it paid off. Ron’s scorebook doesn’t show an error, although there was at least one mental one when the Management forgot that to get an out at first one has to actually run over to the bag.

A rare highlight from our two games against Catahoula
was this Kathy Matheson liner over Renardo and into CF.

That lapse allowed the Tap to chunk around and get three runs in the bottom of the first to tie the score, but we scored five more in the third and three in the fourth and Chris Yasiejko only allowed one more run on the mound.

Among the highlights were the first successfully executed rundown play in P&P history, some nice running catches by Russ Krause in left and the packing up and exiting before that nasty storm blew through.

The scorebook shows three hits for Miller and Donlen, who had a double and a cone-aided triple; two, including a home run, for Nevins, Proctor, Clark and the Management. It was a good, crisp game for the P&P and hopefully is the start of more of the same.

In any case, it was the end of the losing streak, which had gotten to be a real drag. Two of those losses were by one run and another was by two runs, so if you choose to look at it positively, we are just a handful of runs from being where we are supposed to be.

I look at it like none of that matters. When we have our team, we’re going to beat people in the playoffs. It’s that catching and hitting thing that has been tripping us up.

Obligatory Hoagiefest shot. (Photos by Jon Snyder)