Armena Takes Another Close One From The Milleteers

You might call it a changing of the guard, but the Armena Royals have already beaten the Milleteers as many times this year as they have in the previous five seasons combined as they took their second closely contested regular season win against the defending champs in as many weeks.

 

It was the same old story for the Milleteers as they had more errors in one inning than they had hits in the game as they wasted a great pitching performance from a well rested Steven Pahl tonight.  With the MLB amateur player draft going on during the game Pahl turned back the clock and gave one of his better performances, since he was actually eligible for the draft some twelve plus years ago.  Despite the terrible defense he gave up only three hits in his eight plus innings, which was more like eleven due to all the extra outs he had to get as he only gave up one earned run back in the second inning.

 

Offensively the Milleteers had their chances again, but they continued to strand runners in scoring position and shoot themselves in the foot as they had two runners picked off and botched a sacrifice bunt late.  On top of that they couldn’t buy a base hit when they needed it.  The only runs they scored was a  streaking Greg Zilkie stealing third with the catcher air mailing it into the outfield and a two out, two strike HBP to RF Adam Pahl with the bases loaded to tie it in the sixth.  Other than that it was wasted opportunity after wasted opportunity.

 

The Royals on the other hand played a fairly clean game as they only made two errors, one on the first batter of the game, and the other in the sixth that lead to the Milleteers first run.  Other than that first Zenon Sherbaniuk and the lefty Dean Prpick kept the Milleteers  anemic offense in check as they scattered four hits, six walks, and a couple hit batters.

 

The solid game the Royals put in paid off for them in the second extra inning in the ninth as they got the lead off hitter on after an error to the third baseman on an easy grounder.  Then a good sac bunt turned into a free out when the third baseman couldn’t get it out of his glove cleanly.  After another sac bunt was finally fielded cleanly by the pitcher Pahl to at least finally get an out the table was set with runners at second and third with one out and a drawn in infield.  Leadoff hitter Adam Johnson would walk it off after he tomahawked a high fastball for a line drive single over the drawn in infield to win the game.

 

The loss puts the Milleteers hope of home field advantage in peril as both the surging Royals and the Holden Blue Jays have games in hand.  Next up for both squads will be the Tri Hosted Tournament on the weekend as the Milleteers face off against the Blue Jays and East Park Orioles, while the Royals face off against the Roadrunners and Rosalind A’s in round robin action.