2nd Game vs Karlskoga

The 2nd game wasn’t pretty either. The team was so impressed with my shiny new batting average (.125), that they put me at cleanup. Feel free to laugh, because when I was told I cracked up. I don’t remember exactly what I did at the plate (I’m probably repressing it), but I think it was something like 0-3 with a K and a walk.

I started out at first base, and the plan was to relieve the starter as soon as he ran into trouble. So I entered the game behind 2-0, with 2 outs in the FIRST!!! I went on to pitch 8 1/3 innings of 5 hit ball, giving up 1 earned run but 3 total runs. The first run scored in the second inning. A Karlskoga guy hit the softest ball I’ve ever seen right at the first baseman who replaced me. He somehow lost the ball in the sun, and decided to do a duck and cover drill instead of trying to catch the ball. At least he’ll be ready if Sweden ever gets nuked. He also mishandled another play that inning, leading to the run scoring.

I didn’t give up another run until the 9th, when we were down 3-2. I was exhausted at this point from playing the first game, pitching basically an entire game, and from our pre-game warm-ups—which are somehow about as exhausting as an actual game. I struck out the first guy, but the next batter ripped a single off me—the first legitimate hit off me that game. He stole second, and then the next guy hit a swinging bunt to make it first and third with one out.

Honestly, I thought, “Whatever. I’ve struck out the next kid twice already on fastballs. I’ll strike him out, get the next guy, and we’ll win this thing in the bottom half.” Of course, the man on first got in a pickle, scored the guy from third, and made it to second. I was yelling, “Home!” the entire time because the guy in the pickle was meaningless, but apparently the English word “home” is too different from the Swedish word “hem” to be understood.

In the end it didn’t matter though. The next guy got the second legitimate hit of the game, which shouldn’t have scored the guy from second since our left fielder could have knocked it down with his body and picked it up without the man from second running home. Instead, he made a sweeping lunge at the ball with his glove, missed it, and the ball rolled to the fence giving the hitter an easy trip to third. I got the next guy out, but we lost 5-2.

I’ve accepted that I have to get 4 outs per inning. There were 5 errors in the 2nd game, including 2 hits off me which should have been caught, but the fielders miscommunicated. Either way everyone congratulated me on my performance, and I wasn’t gunned but I was pumping at 82 or 83. It felt significantly faster than usual, anyway. I’m a little disappointed though, because I thought our team was better than what they showed these two games. We’ll see Sunday, when we play the third game of the series.