Week 9

Red Sox 11, Dodgers 6
Sunday, July 13 @ Cumberland Valley High School

The Red Sox pulled out a big win over the division rival Dodgers in a game shortened by lightning.

Mike Craig and Matt Eckenrode each hit 2-run singles in a 7-run first inning. The Sox added a run in the second when Gary Dubas, who walked in each of his 4 plate appearances, hustled home from first on a 2-out double by Michael Plank.

Craig cruised for 2 innings, then ran into trouble as the defense misplayed a few balls behind him. He bailed himself out of one rally by picking a runner off second to end an inning, but the Dodgers cut the lead to 8-6 after 4. Curt LaCoe then entered in relief and tossed 3 scoreless innings as the Sox padded their lead by scratching out 3 more runs.

Outfielders on both teams struggled with a strong wind that blew several deep drives back toward the infield. With only 10 players in uniform, the Sox moved around quite a bit on defense, especially after shortstop Tim Wendel went down with a bad leg rounding first base on a deep drive to leftfield. The defensive highlight of the game was fill-in catcher Dubas' nice grab of a foul pop straight behind the plate. John Lindholm in centerfield and Jerry McKeon in left each made nice grabs as well, and Kirk Strous knocked down a hard spinning liner at thirdbase and threw the batter out easily.

In the bottom of the 7th, Dave Strock doubled into the rightfield gap to plate 2 more runs for the Sox. Moments later, the game was suspended and eventually called off due to lightning, wiping out Strock's hit and leaving the final score at 11-6.