Series 7 Part Zwei: Double Header in Germany!

TEN 0, MMD 7 F

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
TEN	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
MMD	0	0	0	2	3	0	0	2	0

W – Ortiz (1-1)            L - Thomson (1-1)      
       

Both teams traveled to Germany for a promotional double header for an overseas audience. In the first game, both teams got off to a slow offensive start with a few double plays that killed a few embryonic scoring opportunities. However Meow Meow Dui was able to bring a few runs home in the fourth thanks to a string of clutch hits, most importantly RBIs from Scott Hatteberg and Mark Ellis. Dui expanded their lead in the next inning thanks to a three run bomb off the bat of Eric Chavez, which tied him at the time for the league leading fifth of the season. Meanwhile Russ Ortiz twirled a gem of a game for Meow Meow, going seven strong innings and making the Green Sox offense look downright foolish. Ortiz handed the game over to reliever Chris Hammond who has pitched well this year and certainly has grown to be a favorite of Coach Taklamente. Hammond went two innings string to close the game, insulated by a 2 run homer from Meow Meow catcher Gregg Zaun which brought the final score of Game 1 to 7-0. By the way, that homerun tied Gregg Zaun for the league lead in RBIs, at least before the other games this day.
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MMD 2, TEN 5 F

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
MMD	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
TEN	3	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0

W – Piniero (1-3)            L - Pavano (1-2)                 S - Hammond (2)

Game 2 pitted two former Cy Young award winners in a match that was sure to please the German spectators in attendance. Nevertheless, you could hear the Green Sox collective sigh when Joel Piniero surrendered a two run shot to Miguel Tejada in the top of the first. But unlike game 1, the Green Sox offense finally decided that they weren't going to take another beating lying down. In the bottom of the first, the first four batters of the Green Sox lineup tagged Carl Pavano for three runs while simultaneously hitting for a cycle: Omar Vizquel tripled, Magglio Ordonez doubled, Jorge Posada homered, and David Ortiz singled. Both former Cy Youngs settled down after the shaky first and ended up completing the game. However Joel Piniero was clearly the better pitcher, shutting out Meow Meow Dui for the rest of the game. While Piniero has generally been a disappointment in his first season with the Green Sox, this was pretty clearly his best game of the year so far. Carl Pavano gave up another two runs in the sixth and had several close calls throughout the rest of the game. There was a bit of drama in the top of the ninth as the game was being closed out for the Green Sox. At one point Meow Meow baserunner Ryan Freel was thrown out at third when trying to round second after an Aaron Rowand single. Although it was somewhat close, instant replays showed that the call was correct and that Freel was indeed out. Coach Taklamente came out to argue and got into a very heated argument with the ump. Green Sox starter Joel Piniero approached the arguing duo and exchanged words with Taklamemte. Whatever Piniero said, Taklamemte lost his cool and started screaming, resulting in his prompt ejection. To make matters worse, the next batter doubled, which would have surely brought home Freel had he not been waved onto third.  After the game Taklamemte gave a circus of a press conference in which he verbally blasted both Piniero and his own starter Pavano. "Well clearly we cannot trust former Cy Young winners whose first names are four letters and whose last names begin with 'P' and end with 'O'," said Taklamemte. "Piniero should have absolutely been ejected as well, after he told me to shut up and go back to the dugout. But you saw that the referee gave him special treatment, just like he got all the calls the entire evening. Totally unfair. I don't know how we could have won that game. As for Carl....I will need to fix him. His performance is entirely unacceptable, especially for what we're paying him. This is already his second loss of the year. Not acceptable for a Cy Young." Taklamemte did not answer any questions about his experience playing in Germany or his team's upcoming series against the Bobians. Nor did he explain what he meant by "fix." Things certainly don't look good for the Green Sox, so any win against a playoff caliber team is a big one at this point.
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TYC 4, ZSY 11 F

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
TYC	1	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0
ZSY	0	0	4	1	3	0	2	1	0

W – D'Amico (1-2)            L - Lopez (0-2)               

This game looked like it was going to be a 4th starter high-scoring affair from the get-go. The Tycoons strung together several hits in the top of the first resulting in a Jason Giambi RBI single. Tycoons starter Albie Lopez appeared cruise through the Z-Slayer lineup the first time around, but ran into trouble in the third, surrendering two homeruns to Jason Larue and Albert Pujols, both bringing in two runs. The Tycoons answered immediately in the top of the fourth, rallying against D'Amico with a Edgar Renteria RBI double and a Jeremy Giambi 2 RBI double. The back-and-forth continued in the bottom of the inning, when Ralph Kiner lead off with a triple and was immediately brought home by a Paul Lo Duca single. This knocked Tycoon starter Albie Lopez out of the game after just four innings of work; Jeff D'Amico finished the top of the fifth and was pulled as well. Former Darkpaw Mike Myers entered the game for the Z-Slayers and pitched three solid innings of relief, easily his best performance thus far this year. The Tycoon reliever, Shingo Takatsu, did not fare as well; he surrendered a three run blast to Albert Pujols in the fifth...and then another 2 run shot to Pujols in the seventh! This is the first time that a player has hit three homeruns in a single game so far this season. With his 3 homeruns and 7 RBIs in this game, Pujols now is first in the league in both categories on the season (6 HR and 20 RBI respectively). Z-Slayers thirdbaseman Jeff Cirillo tacked on another RBI in the bottom of the eighth as his team's bullpen strung together an impressive four inning string of shutout baseball. As the Tycoons drop to 7-5, yet another win for a Division 1 Team. Mao's team has been a big factor in this lopsidedness; they've lost four of their last five games.