THE HURTIN' HANGOVER...

HURTIN' UNITS VS. THE RUSTY REBELS.

Game # 15 - July 12th, 2016

Hurtin' Units lose 35-17

Team Record - 8-7-0

THE HANGOVER:

Over the past weekend the Hurtin' Units would play in the HTKP tournament. The Units would play 5 games and come away with the HTKP championship. Now 5 games doesn't sound like a lot of games, but they probably played a part in this loss to the Rusty Rebels. We are talking 5 very intense and emotional games, filled with up and downs, beer and Sambuca, players that played in both divisions and guys that have nagging injuries from both the regular season and the tourney. 

I'm not making excuses for the Rebel game, all I'm saying is that the teams the played in the tournament were probably hurting on Monday and Tuesday. The Rusty Rebels did not enter a team in the tournament. I did see Hughie playing for the Draft Kings, but I don't remember seeing very many Rebels over the weekend. 

On Monday evening, I subbed for the Dusty Cleats (I actually subbed for the Tap Masters in the 7 o'clock game also) and the Cleats also had a tournament hangover. The Dusty Cleats, who are currently sitting in 2nd place, in the standings, did not look like the Dusty Cleats that have won 9 games in a row and were the current Beer Cup holders. 

The Grisslies hangover saw them lose to the Dogcatchers, who for some reason didn't have as big of a hangover (probably because they had a surge of confidence after making it to the semis on Sunday). The Cleats, the Grisslies and the Hurtin' Units (who played on Tuesday evening), all had very similar games and none of the games were pretty to watch. 

On Monday evening, the field conditions at Keogh Park were awful; it was like running on patterned concrete in the first game. My legs and feet were already sore, from the weekend, and if I had known how bad the infield was prior to the Cleats game, I would not have subbed. The hit balls were bouncing horribly and on several occasions, balls hit guys or came close to hitting them...just awful field conditions.
  

I knew coming in to this game against the Rebels, it was going to be a tough match. The Rusty Rebels are stacked, yes stacked, with a lineup of hard hitting and very smart ball players. They are not a fun lineup to pitch against. The Rusty Rebels currently sit in the 3rd position in the standings and they are there because they are well coached, have strong bats and they eat their Wheaties.   

Back on May 10th the Rusty Rebels and the Hurtin' Units played each for the first time. The Hurtin' Units would defeat the Rebels by a score of 14-10 for their first win of the season. 

GAME TIME (8:15).

The weather for this game was good, there was a sun/cloud mix to start, the temperature was about 32 degrees, feeling like 36 with the humidity, and there was a light breeze. 

At game time, we had 10 players almost all dressed in Hurtin' Units shirts (except for Jimmy R., who was wearing a throwback shirt from the 90s) and ready to battle the Rebels. Missing from the lineup were Jon D. and Ted B. Jon had gone out west on an assignment and Teddy was still in England watching his son in win a gold metal in the Under 18, Juniors ball hockey tournament. Congratulations Guys!!

I am going to say that this was the Hurtin' Units worst game of the season. Up until this game, the largest differential in game score, for a Units loss was 6. In this game it was 18, which will hurt us in the plus/minus and runs against stats in the standings. I don't really care about stats, but sometimes season stats can tell a story of how the season is going, this game tells a nightmarish story.

The Hurtin' Units would still score 17 runs, keeping pace with Rebels in the early innings, but the weekend hangover started to rear it's ugly head later in the game. By the 7th inning (open) the Units had nothing left to give and it shows on the score sheet, giving up 9 runs and 13 hits. I think that there was a point when some of the Rebels were trying to get out just to end the top half of the inning. In the bottom of the 7th inning, the Units went down quickly (there was honestly nothing left) sending only 4 batters to the plate. Tough game guys, let's have a beverage and lick our wounds. 

There was one thing I forgot to do after the tournament; I forgot to smudge our bats again. The bats need to be resmudged for different reasons, I will definitely smudge the Units' bats for the next game. 

I will use the game sheets to tell the story of this pounding the Hurtin' Units took in this game.

The Hurtin' Units next game is Thursday July 14th at 9:30pm at Keogh (hopefully the diamond field conditions are better than Monday night).