Softball is a game of cold, hard numbers: ERA, OBP, OPS, WHIP, FIP, and so many other acronyms distilling the game down to tantalizing predictability.
Mother Nature, on the other hand, operates on whims. And this season, her whims have seemed to find Wednesdays particularly opportune times to strike.
This time, she thundered and lit up the sky, cutting short Team We Can’t Hit Deadlines’s matchup against Backdoor Sliders, with WCHD trailing 11-8 in the bottom of the fifth. The game is expected to be continued at a later date, but that decision has yet to come down from the league office.
“I’m just beyond vexed at this point,” manager Derek Wolff said. “I don’t know what to say about Mother Nature, [she’s] just not doing us any favors.”
The WCHDers spent the week taunting the softball gods, declaring victory a certainty — after all, Backdoor Sliders had lost to Misericordia, a team WCHD previously beat handily.
But things didn’t work out that way. As usual, WCHD jumped out to a minimal early lead, crossing one in the first inning. But Backdoor Sliders answered with six straight runs in the first two innings.
Wolff didn’t hide his displeasure with the stop-and-start season to date. The WCHDers have already had a bye and their second game canceled, on top of tonight’s weather delay.
“The mistakes we made in the first inning — we game them five runs [and] I don’t think a single one of those was earned,” Wolff said. “All it is is rust. We have people who have played three times in a six- or seven-week period.”
With the game cut short, the WCHDers are left pondering what could have been.
“You get a game like tonight where we have a really bad start [but] we come right back at it,” Wolff said. “Tie it up in the [third], at 6-6, and we’re right in there with them. we got our 2-3-4 hitters coming up, the heart of the order … you expect the 2-6, maybe even the 2-8 hitters to get you anywhere between 2-5 runs, which is huge in a game when you’re losing 11-8 and likely to get out of that inning. ”
To WCHD’s credit, they bounced back in the third, scoring five to tie the game, 6-6. But a base running mistake could have proved to be a crucial moment (had the game been completed). After advancing to third on a triple, shortstop Fouad Egbaria got caught in a rundown to home when the following batter, center fielder Joe Coughlin, hit a ground ball to the shortstop. The shortstop looked off Egbaria, then appeared to be ready to throw to first, but held the ball, eventually tagging Egbaria halfway between third and home.
From there, however, the Sliders outpaced WCHD en route to an 11-8 lead before lightning struck in the bottom of the fifth inning. The Sliders had two outs, though, and WCHD was set to bring up the heart of its order, a fact Wolff once again emphasized.
“Heart of our order coming back up [in the sixth inning],” Wolff said. “I’ll take that every day. That’s where you want to be, in a competitive spot to give yourself a chance to go out there and win a ballgame in the sixth inning.”
Team WCHD is scheduled to play the Ex-Yellowbookers at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 20, at Revere Park’s Field 4. The Ex-Yellowbookers (1-3) were on bye this week.
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