Series #13 @ Great Lakes

The Lugnuts went 2-4 against a good Great Lakes Loons team (Los Angeles Dodgers affiliate). Our season record is 34-40 while the Loons' record is now 50-24. The Loons have not lost a single six game series all year, but they have lost one series - the first series of the year when we swept them over three games. The Dodgers’ affiliates are always strong with dominant pitching and a steady lineup.

Instead of playing Tuesday to Sunday this week, we played Wednesday to Monday (today). Since the Loons are on the road for July 4th, they chose to play on the 3rd at home - I’m assuming to maximize ticket sales - so we had Monday and Tuesday off last week. Now we are in the middle of twelve straight, six at Great Lakes and six at home. I’ve never played twelve straight days! Half way home.

I only got to pitch once this week on Saturday, a game we won 8-3. All three of the runs we gave up were mine. I entered the game in the 6th inning after our starter went 5 scoreless innings. I pitched a scoreless 6th inning with some of the hardest fastballs of the year, a bunch of 90s and a couple 91s (the radar gun reads slow in the video). Strikeout, pop up, walk, strikeout. Here are the strikeouts:

I went back out for the 7th and immediately ran into trouble. A leadoff walk and a quick single had runners on first and second with no one out. After a mound visit, I ran into more trouble. The next batter smoked a ball to third base that clipped our fielder’s glove and went down the left field line. Our third baseman is a stellar defender and I’m sure he’d catch that ball nine times out of ten, but this time he didn’t and it went down as an RBI double. The next batter hit a sac fly which concluded my day with one out in the inning.

I was throwing hard and felt like my stuff was sharp on the mound. In the first inning, I was working ahead of the batters and was able to put them away but I did fall behind a couple batters in the 7th, which came around to hurt me.

As you can see here, I've been working on my mustache, along with a couple of the other Velo Boyz. The Lugnuts are expecting a massssive July 4th crowd so I'm looking forward to rocking it in front of 12,000+ fans. I've pitched on July 4th, 2021 and July 4th 2022... will the streak continue? We shall see tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!