Metros knock out Knights in tense thriller
By Alvin Michael | alvinmichael.com | @AlvinMicWrites | @alvinmicwrites
London Metros 8 - 4 Richmond Knights
British Baseball Federation, AAA Semi-final
Finsbury Park, London, Sunday 4th September 2022
London Metros booked their place in the 2022 BBF AAA Final with a dramatic win over their cross-city rivals Richmond Knights. Both teams had reached the semi-final stage by winning their pools in the regular season amassing similar win-loss records. Their last meeting was a slug-fest, both sides blasting 5 home runs apiece as Metros edged out the win. The conditions were perfect for a game of baseball – a slight cool breeze underneath a cloudy blue sky – and the air was electric with anticipation for an exciting win-or-go-home game.
Richmond’s Rei Martinez throws a strike.
Richmond was the official home side and Rei Martinez threw a fastball right down Broadway for a strike to start things off. Martinez was excellent all day, mixing a wicked slider with his 4-seam fastball to great effect. He tossed 6 innings of 4-hit ball, striking out 7 and only issuing 2 walks. Metros’ hitters rarely barrelled up the baseball all game, but they battled in the batter's box, often working the count full. Their dogged determination to get on base paid off several times as Richmond’s infield committed 7 errors in the game. And Richmond was punished for those sins, as London ran the base paths with intelligent aggression scoring 3 of their 8 runs on those errors.
Tosh Lawson faced off against Martinez for Metros and was equally effective, pitching a complete game. His stuff wasn’t overpowering, striking out just 2 batters, but his command was excellent – the only free passes he gave were a plunked batter in the first and another in the ninth inning. He peppered the strike zone with his fastball and buckled the knees of his opponents with a sharp 12-6 curveball that he threw at will. Knights’ offence was sporadic all game, a few of their 10 hits were fortuitous bloop singles, but they did make hard contact several times. Fortunately for Lawson those hard-hit balls were often aimed directly at a Metros defender to make the easy out. In the 2nd inning, Metros’ Jonathan Mauerer made a sensational diving play that saved a run. Lawson’s pitch exploded off Jonathan Silva’s bat and looked certain to get through the gap on the right side, but Mauerer sprinted to his left, dove flat out to glove the groundball, popped back to his feet and fired it to first base in time.
The game was moving along quickly and seemed to be evolving into a classic pitcher’s duel through the first two and half innings. But back-to-back RBI singles from Alessandro Trabucco and Marco Pestana gave Richmond the lead in the bottom of the 3rd. Pestana’s hit was a carbon copy of Trabucco’s - a ground ball pummelled through the 5-6 hole into left field. Richmond were fired up but they couldn’t convert that off-the-field passion into on-the-field supremacy. Camden Brown walked to start the top of the 4th and stole second base. An overthrow by catcher Marco Pestana attempting to nab Brown stealing third base allowed Brown to come home easily. Metros kept the pressure up with runners on the corners and 1 out before a contentious balk was called on Martinez to move the runners up, scoring the second run of the inning for Metros, and taking away the double play chance for Richmond. The Richmond players and bench were furious with the perplexing call. It was the second called balk of the game against Martinez, the first of which came in the 1st inning, which also later resulted in a run scored. Coach Humberto Goncalves came out to argue the call with the field umpire, Mike Shepard, and make his feelings known, and it wasn’t long before he was ejected by Shepard. The perceived unfairness seemed to weigh heavy on the Richmond players, as they made more errors conceding 2 more runs before Lawson popped out in foul territory on the first base side for the 3rd out. Metros had taken this game by the scruff of its neck and, despite few quality hits, were ahead 5-2.
Tosh Lawson strikes out Alessandro Trabucco looking in the 9th inning
Martinez and Lawson made quick work of both opposing hitters through the middle innings, assisted by their middle infielders. The fifth inning was a tale of two double plays, including a gem that brought the attending spectators to their feet with applause and appreciation. In the top half of the inning Richmond’s Trabucco made a spectacular play up the middle showing incredible athleticism, agility and presence of mind to record the double play. With a runner on first, Brown hit a rocket line drive comebacker at Martinez on the mound, who instinctively reached up to try to snare the ball, but only managed to deflect it. The ball was hit with such ferocity the deflection barely slowed it down. Trabucco who was sprinting towards second halted his momentum and, slipping, caught the ball on the fly from the seat of his pants. He quickly jumped back to his feet and tagged out Cameron Lee who had committed to reach second base expecting the ball to drop into the infield. In the bottom half, Mauerer was in the right place at the right time to turn a double play. Luis Goncalves laced a bullet line drive straight at Maurer who then doubled off Jesus Pestana in a bang-bang play at second base as Pestana dove back in head first.
Metros added another run in the top of the 6th to extend their lead through an RBI single by James Erskine. The game looked to be getting away from Richmond, they needed a spark and it came from their ace Martinez. A great pick off move got the runner out at second base before he struck out Sam Wright to end the inning. In the home half of the 6th, Jonathan Silva smacked a 2 RBI double into the right field corner to halve the deficit. Richmond was back in the game, but Metros recomposed themselves to end the inning without conceding any more runs.
The game was delicately balanced and could have gone either way. Louis Ramey came in for Martinez to start the 7th. After walking the first batter on 4 straight balls, he settled down and struck out 2 of the next 4 batters, but not before a wild pitch and a deep SAC fly RBI to right field by Brown put 2 more runs on the board for London. Ramey would finish the game with 4 strikeouts and 2 walks, off no hits and 1 earned run over 3 innings. After the initial opening hiccup, he was on fire, painting the corners with his 4-seam fastball and leaving London’s hitters guessing and whiffing with his sweeping slider. Ramey repaid his manager’s faith in him and locked it down, giving his team every chance to mount a comeback. It just wasn’t meant to be for Richmond. They put runners on base, but couldn’t keep any momentum going leaving the runners stranded, in part due to a bit of bad luck, but largely due to the great pitching and solid defensive plays by London Metros. Doug McDougall saw the majority of the action at shortstop with 9 assists, including the final out of the game, which he calmly picked up and threw to first after initially bobbling it. The team converged on Lawson and catcher Joe O’Connell in the middle of the infield to celebrate their momentous achievement.
The final out of the 2022 BBF AAA semi-final. Marco Pestana hits a groundball to shortstop Doug McDougall who throws to first in time to win the ball game.
Post-Game
London Metros were deserved winners. They played fundamentally sound baseball and performed the basics perfectly. They committed very few errors and maximised every opportunity afforded to them. Their mental fortitude outlasted their opponents’, never faltering and remaining focussed on the task at hand. Chip Gudger, in his first season as manager, was delighted with his team’s performance,
“Richmond’s a great team, we like playing them. For us it’s all about pitching There's good pitchers out here and this game for us I think came down to defence to be fair. I think there's a lot of plays that they probably would normally make, but didn't make, and we took advantage of that.
“Our starter went 9 [innings] today. Tosh [Lawson] was great, outstanding plays from Jonathan [Mauerer] who is actually my MVP. I think his plays were definitely the spine breakers today, he tracked down a lot of balls, he also had that outstanding double play with the liner and caught the guy leading off second.
“[It was a] well-played game for the most part, I think it's one of those things, it's easy to get too emotional in these games and not keep your head about you because it's a long game and you make it longer if you lose your head.”
Richmond battled not just with London and the umpires (Osmel Vasquez was also ejected in the 8th inning for arguing plate umpire Gabor Erdos’ decision to call a ball on a quick pitch by Ramey), they battled themselves mentally, and lost. Richmond manager Carlos Casal was magnanimous and philosophical in defeat,
“To be perfectly honest it was a very close game. They had a good pitcher, so did we, but I cannot say any one dominated the game from the beginning. We gave them a freebie in the beginning, we gave them a couple of freebies, and I think we lost our heads at that point.
“That doesn't take away the fact that we had a hell of a team with a hell of a season. These guys are warriors with a lot of talent and the young spirit sometimes gets to the head, and we can’t overcome that fact.
“There's a learning curve in here, we're gonna work harder for next season and I said to them you just need to enjoy what you do, and if we enjoy the game we don't need to worry about obstacles that we might think we have. We can't blame anyone else but us because this is the game. We have a game to play and we played it, and they were better today, simple.
“Rei Martinez started on the mound, he really did a good job, his speed was fantastic, he was hitting his spots in the strike zone. I think I would say that from the beginning Rei was the MVP, but we couldn’t back him up. When he got tired, we had Luis Ramey. Luis [was] also really hot and was also controlling the strike zone, adjusting a little bit with the umpire’s perception of a balk.
“Overall, I would say that our hero’s today were our pitchers. If we didn't have these pitchers the game would have been different, honestly. Our bats were not hot today and that's something we need to work on finding strategies and finding ways to get the game going offensively.”
Yogi Berra once said, “baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical”. Whilst the maths doesn’t quite add up, the sentiment is spot on and was never more apparent than in this semi-final.
London Metros will compete for the AAA National Championships against East London Latin Boys, who won the earlier semi-final beating Bournemouth Bears 9-4. It was a another evenly contested game through the first 8 innings until Latin Boys jumped on pitcher Jose Lopez, tagging him for 6 runs in the 9th including a 3 RBI home run from Adonis Gálvez Rodríguez. Metros manager Gudger was looking forward to the game with confidence,
“We've been playing with them all season. I love their game, they've got a lot of great players, it should be a lot of fun for us. We beat them four times in the regular season so I think they want some pay back and were happy to oblige them with another opportunity. Anything can happen, every day is fresh, we will do the same thing that we've been doing all season – ice cold, be calm, take each play as it happens, don't lose your head – and that to me is the best baseball you can play.”
The final will be held at Farnham Park in Slough on Sunday 18th September 2022.