Richmond Dukes Vs London Minotaurs
Flood Field, Sunday 20th March 2022
By Alvin Michael | alvinmichael.com | @AlvinMicWrites
As Major League Baseball began Spring training games stateside this past week, the Richmond Dukes followed suit over on this side of the pond hosting their local rivals, the London Minotaurs, in a pre-season double header.
A warm and sunny day, it was the perfect playing conditions for the Dukes to put into practice the weeks of drills and hard work they had gone through during the cold winter months led by their manager Paul Tiley and coach Sam Hofbeck. The hard work paid dividends as the Dukes won both games in comfortable fashion.
The visitors started strongly in game 1 scoring a couple of runs in the top of the 1st inning, but Richmond came back in the bottom of the inning. With some quality hitting and aggressive base running, they took the lead and didn’t look back.
Stellar performances by pitcher Leo Sakai-James and catcher Sam Hofbeck, backed up by solid defence, held off the Minotaurs. Hofbeck showed off his strong arm from behind the plate throwing out two runners at 2nd base that all but nullified the visitors running threat for the remainder of the contest. The Dukes continued to have strong at-bats up and down the order with players coming off the bench in the latter stages to add to the run tally.
A pitching change in the final inning saw Monty Nendick toe the rubber for Richmond. He pitched well only giving up 1 walk, 1 hit and no runs. With the Minotaurs wanting to save their pitchers’ arms for game two, both sides agreed to give the Dukes’ pitcher a run out on the mound for the visiting side. An unusual decision, but one that exemplified the good-natured spirits and healthy respect between the two sides.
Monty continued his good performance, but gave up a single to centre by Luke Ellett in his first ever at-bat for Richmond. Ellett scored easily on another ground ball single up the middle by fellow rookie, James Estorninho. In an intriguing twist of fate, those in attendance were treated to a first ever father-son face-off as Andy Nendick stepped into the batter’s box against his son Monty. Andy was eager to get a hit off his son, fouling off a couple of good pitches. However, it was Monty who won this individual battle, striking out his dad as he swung and missed chasing a high fastball.
Game 1, final score: 14-4
Game 2 saw a number of changes to the Richmond line up, but no dip in the performance on the field. The Dukes were the theoretical visiting team and they continued where they left off at the end of the first game, putting together a string of great at-bats. Luke Ellett led off for the Dukes, hitting the first pitch of the game back up the middle for a base hit single. Back-to-back RBI doubles to left centre field from Paul Tiley and Rob Markiewicz, followed up by a couple of unearned runs gave Richmond the lead which they never relinquished.
Paul Tiley was the starting pitcher for the Dukes in game 2. He retired the London side in the bottom of the 1st inning in quick fashion and continued pitching well into the 2nd. A couple of infield singles and some mental mistakes in the field allowed the Minotaurs to load the bases. But Richmond regrouped and Tiley made some key pitches to get out of the 2nd inning with only one run allowed.
The Minotaurs buoyed by their good offensive inning made quick work of the Richmond bats in the top of the 3rd, getting three successive outs with weak pop outs to the infield. Sensing an opportunity to rally back, London continued to fight back getting a couple of timely hits off new pitcher James Guerra, and with some fortuitous help from a couple of fielding errors, they were able to tag on another run.
But the Dukes’ bats came alive again after the minor blip in the 3rd, demonstrating great composure to load the bases with solid base hits and disciplined walks, they continued to increase their lead and finished off the game strongly.
Manager, Paul Tiley, was delighted with his team’s performance saying, “It was an awesome effort today...two wins is a great way to get Spring training going”. He added, “The bats and plate appearances were awesome, and more stealing was great to see. Also [it was] great to see an amazing debut by our Rookies today”.
Game 2, final score: 13-2