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Senators Can't Hold On; Fall to Raiders |
July 25, 2008. Vienna, Va. -- For Senators starter Richard Cary, the 2008 Clark Griffith League season has been a tale of two halves. Prior to the all-star break, Cary was the most dominant pitcher in the league. He was 5-0, with a miniscule 0.62 ERA, both of which were the best in the CGL. He was named the starting pitcher for the CGL All-Star team, an honor usually bestowed upon the best pitcher in the league.
Since the break, Cary has been a different pitcher. Cary is 2-3 in 5 appearances, and has an ERA of 8.44, the highest on the team. He has also allowed 25 hits over that span.
“In a wood bat league, you can get away with a lot the first month of the season,” said pitching coach Mike Wallace. “In the second month, the hitters start getting the technique of the wood bat down, and they start hitting pitches that you get away with in the first half.”
Cary continued this trend Friday night, with a rough outing against the McLean Raiders. Cary was hurt by the long ball, and allowed five runs in four innings of work. All five runs were on Raiders' home runs. The Senators could not overcome those early runs, and dropped their second game in a week to the Raiders 8-4.
“I think [Richard] has to get better location on his pitches,” said Wallace. “If you're working in the middle of the plate, these guys are going to get you. All he needs to do is get better location and work on the corners.”
The game was originally scheduled to be played at Waters Field, but due to a scheduling conflict was moved to Fairfax High School. Fairfax's short left field fences contributed to part of Cary's problems. Cary, however, felt that he pitched pretty well.
“When you play teams over and over again, it isn't much of a surprise to them of what you are doing,” said Cary. “I'm not worried about this outing. I didn't do anything wrong, they just turned on the ball on the inner half of the plate.”
Cary was not the only Senator who dropped the ball Friday night. Senators coaches described the team effort as the worst of the entire season.
“We've been playing for two months now, and we've been working way too hard to put this kind of game on,” said Martin Parra. “We just came out dead tonight.”
The Senators offense was held in check by Raiders left-hander Brett Williams for five innings. The team managed only one run off of Williams in his five innings of work.
“We were just trying too much,” said Parra. “He was throwing slower than most, and I think we were just swinging too hard.”
Trailing 6-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh, the Senators clawed back into the game in the seventh inning when Seth Henry hit a three-run home run to deep left field. Henry has been the Senators best hitter over the past week and a half. Over that stretch, he is batting .581 with 6 home runs and 21 RBIs.
However, the Raiders responded with a run in the seventh inning off of Clint Maune, and then two more off of Mason Griffin in the eighth inning.
The Raiders then used their two best pitchers in the eighth and ninth innings to secure the win. Daniel Tillman pitched a scoreless eighth, before Tyler Sanders pitched a scoreless ninth.
Sanders added a little drama in the ninth, as he allowed two runners to reach with only one out. The heart of the Senators' order was due up with David Harris and Parra. However, Harris flied out to left field. Parra then stroked a ball to the left center field gap, but left fielder Greg Bachman made an impressive leaping catch to end the game.
The playing surface was an issue for both teams, as a number of balls took bad hops moving through the infield. It was an adventure for the Senators left side of the infield to deal with the hard hit balls and the bad hops.
“The surface is pretty messed up from the weather that we have been having,” said Parra. “There were a lot of bad hops out there.”
The Senators also made a number of throwing errors that severely hampered them. The team made five errors on the night, their second-highest total of the season. Parra, who has been one of the best defensive third basemen in the CGL this year, made 2 throwing errors.
“I can't make any excuses,” said Parra, “but every time I picked up the ball it was wet, so when it came out of my hand I had no idea where it was going.”
The other three errors came on throwing errors from the pitchers. Each Senators pitcher committed one during his outing Friday night, and two were on wild pickoff attempts.
The Senators play two more games tomorrow against the Putty Hill Panthers Blue in their regular season finale. Next week they play in the Jacobs Cup, the CGL's end of season tournament.
Both teams will be playing postseason tournaments this year. The Senators will be representing the CGL in the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kansas. The Raiders will be the CGL's representative in the AAABA Tournament in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Andrew Struckmeyer
Vienna Senators