If there’s one thing worse than getting whipped at home in Ottawa, it’s getting whipped 200km away in a late game on a weeknight, which was supposed to be the case last night when the SweatSox travelled to Kingston to face the Ponies for the first time in NCBL regular season action. In fact, some in Kingston still believe this is the first game of any kind that the SweatSox and Ponies have competed in, but that’s another story for another day.
When the first wave of SweatSox arrived in Kingston about an hour before game-time, we noticed that the entire Ponies team was already on the field taking BP. We also noticed that their BP pitcher was throwing at least 5x harder than SweatSox starter Josh Ramage was going to toss, which meant once the game started “Mr. Kingston?” might be able to throw off their timing at the plate for a little bit. And he did.
Let the record show that after 1 complete inning of play the SweatSox led the Ponies 1-0. We had to commemorate this momentous occasion with a picture:
While the Ponies would tie the game in the 2nd, we’d actually take a 3-1 lead through 3, but the Ponies scored 9 runs over the next 2 innings, including a 2-out grand slam that was as high as it was far, to put the game out of reach. SweatSox lose 10-6 in a rare SweatSox Tier 1 game that was actually much closer than the score would indicate.
FINAL: Ponies 10. SweatSox 6.
WP- MacDonald
LP- Ramage
S- KalivasHR- Bond
SLAM- Masterson*We played okay!#notashutout#notamercy#L9
— SweatSox (@SweatSox) June 9, 2016
The Après Baseball Hyjinx was spent driving back to Ottawa, but thankfully Denver Hunt was able to win us the Hyjinx all by himself!
Final SweatSox vs Ponies Notes/Thoughts:
- Using Sportsplex as a starting point, and assuming 1 trip to Cornwall, 1 trip to Metcalfe, and 2 trips to Winchester; the SweatSox saved approximately 140km of driving by going to Tier 1 and travelling to Kingston just once.
- DuFu got a pregame jerk in at an Ottawa ESSO.
- Armando Navarro skipped the game because he would’ve had to leave Orleans at like 11am.
- Marc Lett attended the game only because Mark Stinson couldn’t.
- Dillon Lowry drove all the way to Kingston to play half an inning.
- John Groves has Kingston warning track power.
- Mark Bond broke a bat hitting whiffles in the pregame, but didn’t break one on his 7th inning HR.
- The only thing that prevented 4 SweatSox strikeouts in the 3rd inning was a groundout to the pitcher by I, Shaun Keay.
- The fans in the stands clocked Josh Ramage’s “eephus” at 25kph.
- Eric White caught a ball in RF while playing LF.
- The SweatSox are the first team in NCBL history to hit a HR in all 4 tiers.
- For the first time this year, the SweatSox had (and blew) 2 different leads.
- If Sexy Boy Clifford Garrison really was the Showstopper, Icon, and Main Event, he’d do the HBK pose in the batters box next time.
- Jeremiah Skelhorne-Gross thought I, Shaun Keay, pitched a good game.
- We don’t blame the Ponies for not knowing what the first names of the Bond brothers are, or that it was actually Eric White who gave up the grand slam; after all they still think they went 2-0 in the Brewer tournament round robin last year:
Next up for the SweatSox is our second matchup of the year against the Outlaws tomorrow night at the Sportsplex. Mark Stinson is a strong maybe to make it.
BONUS COVERAGE: While the SweatSox were getting sink-holed in Kingston, the Braves vs Marc Sports game at Faulkner ended in a controversial 5-5 tie instead of an 11-5 Marc Sports win. Marc Sports were not happy, and called shenanigans on the Braves 7th inning strategy. We know where this is going, so if both teams would agree to it, the SweatSox will be happy to officiate, live tweet, and Periscope the now unavoidable Jose Hernandez vs Dominik Robinson foot race. Let us know where and when.
Waste enough time to make sure the lights will close… #fairplay ? 35 minutes for a half-inning… #loserattitude?
— Dominik Robinson (@D0minikRobinson) June 9, 2016
#AQUATARIUM