Gud Twins Tourney, Twinkie Town Title, Game 1: There must be some mistake

Results

Even if the rest of the game is played perfectly, one mistake can sink a team.

In Game 1 of the bout for the Twinkie Town title, two mistakes — two improperly-placed pitches — sunk the Inside Baseballers.

Carl Pavano scattered seven hits over seven innings, but two of those hits were solo home runs by Mark Salas and Bobby Kielty; those two runs were all the Wonder Years would need to squeeze ahead of the Baseballers with a 2-1 victory.

Those two runs might not have been enough were it not for the dominant pitching of Kevin Tapani, who allowed only one unearned run and six hits while striking out 10 over 7.1 innings.

The unearned run broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth. With one out, Tony Oliva hit a ground ball to third which Nick Punto mishandled; after a flyout, Zoilo Versalles doubled in Oliva, giving the Baseballers the first lead of the game.

But while Pavano had kept the Years off the scoreboard through four innings, Wonder had put bat on ball, tallying four hits but not sending a runner around the bases. The fifth hit, coming in the bottom of the fifth, proved disastrous for Pavano.

One inning after Salas went over the wall, Bobby Kielty duplicated his feat:

While Pavano worked around those mistake pitches, his mound foe Tapani finagled his own way out of situation, striking out half a score of batters while stranding five runners. The last of these came in a key situation in the top of the seventh; with Rich Rollins on second, Tapani induced a Joe Mauer popout and struck out pinch hitter David Ortiz to maintain the Years’ lead.

While Inside continued to put runners on base in the following innings, Wonder’s bullpen ensured none of them would make it back to the plate. In the eighth, Bill Dailey and Bill Pleis combined to strand Byron Buxton on second; one inning later, Pleis allowed a pair of singles but left them both on the bags with Greg Gagne’s game-ending groundout.

And thus, the series began.

But not after the OOTP play-by-play text dropped a dad joke in the sixth inning.

MMR (Final Game) | TTT (Game 1) | TTT (Game 2)