The Marlins and Pirates opened up their best-of-three playoff series Tuesday night at the Bob in spectacular fashion. Mike Kane and Phil Gadomski were brilliant on the mound for their teams. Mash gave up just six hits and two walks, & Mike scattered 8 hits and walked none. The game was one of the fastest games I have ever been involved in, mainly due to the high percentage of strikes that were thrown by both pitchers. The first six innings took just one hour!
The Pirates were the first to score, when a leadoff walk was followed by a single to put runners on first and third with no outs. Mash then got Bob Yakatan to ground into a 6-4-3 double play that scored a run, but snuffed out any more thoughts of a bigger rally.
It looked like Mike Kane was going to make that one run stand up as he breezed through the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th innings facing just two batters over the minimum.
But the Marlins are a veteran bunch that never gives up and they were not dead yet. Ron Lochner and Chuck Sohl started the rally with consecutive singles. Curt Coons then hit a laser down the third baseline to score Lochner with the tying run.
The go ahead run was scored when John Reel hit a ball that was headed up the middle, but was gloved at the last second by Mark Callahan at short. With his momentum carrying him toward second, he took the out there by flipping to second base. The second baseman then tried to get the runner who was headed for third, but the throw hit the runner, allowing him to score the go-ahead run. There was still just one out and a runner on third, but Mike Kane induced the next two Mrlins hitter to ground out to third to avoid any further damage.
This late rally would have taken the starch out of most teams, but the Pirates had an answer of their own. Mike Kane led off the bottom of the seventh with a single and was sacraficed to second. Ron Smaka then promptly singled and his courtesy runner Mark Callahan stole second. Rich Wander then hit a sacrafice fly to tie the game and move the potential winning run to third. The Marlins chose to intentionally walk Rodriguez after falling behind in the count 2-0. This brought Carlos Agneta to the plate. Carlos took no time in finding a pitch he liked as he promptly hit the first pitch for a soft liner over the short stop's head for a game winning single.
As heart breaking as this loss was, I was incredibly proud to be the Marlins manager. We had our leadoff (stating catcher) and number two hitter (starting short stop) out of town. We had a third baseman playing with a compressed vertabrae and a shortstop playing with a fractured rib. I had another guy ready to go on the bench with a partially torn calf muscle and numerous other guys nursing more nagging injuries. Not one used their misfortune as an excuse! They sucked it up, taped it up and played one helluva ball game. With this kind of heart, I like our chances in game two. I wouldn't want to be manager of any other team!