Baseball: You Can Blame Mother Nature
Stingers Drop Game 2 to McGill, Series Tied 1-1
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This past Saturday, the Concordia Stingers were in the top of the fifth inning with a man on third and second, nobody out, beating the McGill Redmen 2-1. The Stingers were seemingly on their way to a two-game sweep of the Redmen in the Canadian Collegiate Baseball Association North Division Final when rain began pouring down and moved the game to the next day.
Much to their dismay, the Stingers couldn’t keep their men on base, nor their lead from Saturday, and ultimately lost 8-4 to McGill in a game where they didn’t have access to their starting pitcher, Roberto Zapata, from the beginning of the game because of school exams.
If a game is suspended before the fifth inning has been completed, the game must be replayed from the top of the inning, meaning the Stingers couldn’t keep their runners on second and third base, and had to start their fifth inning from scratch.
“We had them on the ropes,” said Stingers manager Howie Schwartz. “I think we would have had a very different outcome if we had continued to play that game.”
While Concordia did have a 4-2 lead heading into the sixth inning, they allowed six unanswered runs from McGill, and didn’t respond in the seventh, giving the game to the Redmen.
The Stingers were also without the services of Zapata, who had pitched four innings and only gave up one run, while also striking out two hitters on 49 pitches. The Stingers were forced to go with Brandon Berkovits, who had pitched in Game 1 on Saturday.
Concordia initially wasn’t frazzled by the rain delay as they scored a run in the fifth off a RBI single from Sam Lamothe. Berkovits allowed a run in the bottom of the fifth, before Concordia responded with another run in the sixth, on a base-on-balls by catcher Jean-Christophe Paquin with the bases loaded.
Berkovits continued pitching in the sixth inning, where he and the team unraveled, giving up six runs on four hits, one base on balls, and two errors by second baseman Jonathan Raftus, handing the Redmen an 8-4 lead going into the seventh inning.
“We only have one other pitcher left because of our short staff right now and we were going to live or die with him,” said Schwartz on his decision to stick with Brandon Berkovits in the sixth.
The Stingers and Redmen will battle it out in a winner-take-all Game 3 on Sunday, Oct. 19 at Trudeau Park to decide who will win the CCBA North Division Final.
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