Dodgers vs Cardinals

On Thursday, Zachary's baseball team played a makeup game vs the Cardinals.  I think several kids (and maybe some parents too) were a little nervous about this team.  This team has a player on it who is pretty well known for being the best player in the league.  The Dodgers have been somewhat inconsistent so far - winning a couple of close games, getting blown out & having the mercy rule called, and then blowing another team out in the same fashion.  So I think there were some nerves going on.  It turns out, the Dodgers had nothing to worry about, even being down a few players (we only had 8 kids show up, and they had all 12 of theirs).

For the first time, they played a full 6 innings.  The Cardinals had a few kids who struck out, and those help an inning go by faster because it's a quick, easy out.  They only allowed 3 runs in the top of the first inning.  Zachary was the lead-off batter for the Dodgers.  He got a hit, and then made his way around to score the first run of the game.  The Dodgers finished the first inning by scoring their 5th run.

In the 2nd inning, Zachary made the 3rd out to end the top of the inning.  He then got another hit in the bottom of the 2nd, which then became another run.  Dodgers up 9-4 going into the 3rd inning.  Since the Dodgers only had 8 kids, they went through the batting order pretty quickly, and Zachary led off the bottom of the 3rd inning.  He hit the ball, but got out at first base.  But then his next at-bat was his big one.  He scored his very first triple!  It was a true double, but then he was able to advance to 3rd because of an overthrow by the Cardinals.  He scored a run on the next play.

When they started the 6th inning, the Dodgers were up 13-11 - all they needed to do was hold the Cardinals to 1 run (or none) and the game would have been over - unfortunately, they tied it up, so we had to play the bottom of the inning.  Zachary came up to bat, and got a hit, but then was called out at 3rd a couple of plays later.  There were 2 outs, and we had the winning run on 3rd base.  Our batter got a hit, and the runner scored to end the game 14-13.  It was another exciting finish!

After the game, the team gathered around for the game ball.  The coach decided to give out 2 balls that night - one for the boy who got the hit that drove in the winning run, and one for Zachary, because his bat was ON FIRE that night.  When he got that triple, people were going nuts - including one boy's father.  Someone said something to him and he was like, "Hey, this kid is hitting better tonight than he ever has and he just got a triple - of course I'm excited for him!"  It was so cool to hear another parent get as excited for my kid as I was.

So now they are 3-2 for the season going into spring break.  Things will really pick up after spring break is over, so hopefully the weather will cooperate better in April so we can finish the rest of the games uninterrupted!