Baseball Review // Bristol Blues vs. Worcester Brave Hearts [7/5/19] @ Muzzy Field

Official Box Score :::

http://worcester_fcbl.wttbaseball.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=506675 //

Photos can be found in a Facebook album here :::

https://www.facebook.com/pg/raisedbycassettes/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2910809868960568

Our second Bristol Blues game came the day after the 4th of July because both my dad and I swore that we read somewhere that there would be post game fireworks.   There were not.    Following our last visit to historic Muzzy Field I wondered if there was a way to get an official FCBL baseball that was brand new, much like how the NECBL sells them at their games (the Danbury Westerners will sell you one with a pen as an "autograph combo")   I emailed the FCBL through their website, was asked for my address and three to four days later two baseballs showed up in the mail.

I used one of these baseballs, or rather Quentin did, to get most the Bristol Blues to sign it.   This was what we did once we got to Muzzy Field before the game started.   We spent a half an hour to forty five minutes down there trying to get everyone.   Going into this game, the Blues were tied for first place and they kept having these comeback victories in extra innings.   With their winning record and the Worcester Brave Hearts being at an even .500 I was expecting this to be the game where the Blues took first place for their own.   It was not.

The Brave Hearts pitcher Angelo Baez felt untouchable.   I looked him up after the game and it seems as if he moved from relief to starter and, yeah, he seems to have found his groove as he gave up only two runs over seven innings.  When Blues starter James Judenis gave up one run for each inning after three innings, they took him out.   In the next inning the Blues gave up four runs.   They gave up more runs in one inning than Judenis did for his three innings pitched.   It was crazy.

The Blues pitchers would continue to give up runs, the only inning where the Brave Hearts didn't score was the 8th.   When the first five innings went 1 1 1 4 4 I told my dad that if the Brave Hearts could put up 4 runs in the 6th then those S.A.T. questions would lead me to believe that the 7th, 8th and 9th innings would all be 7 runs for them, which would give the WBH a total of 36 runs, but then I also thought maybe at that point by the 7th or 8th they'd call it on some sort of mercy rule.

This game was about pitching, as the Blues went through seven relievers while the Brave Hearts only used one.    Buddy Dewaine was even shifted from third base to pitcher by the Blues, which I'm not sure if it was a lack of other options or a situation where they thought they'd never be able to catch up so why not give everyone a chance to take the mound.    The Brave Hearts also had a lot of hits- and good ones which would just drop to those odd places where they couldn't be caught or fielded very quickly.

At one point during the game, Quentin went to the bathroom and since the Brave Hearts were just adding on runs I went to find him, to make sure he didn't get lost.    There was an animal rescue there tonight and also a woman by the name of Kimberly [] was selling three different books she wrote about her three-legged cats.   Of course we had to stop and talk with her, buy her books and then as the last innings went on Quentin spent that part of the game reading instead of watching the Blues lose. 

Perhaps the funniest part of the game was that as soon as it ended they immediately turned off the scoreboard to hide their shame.   I certainly hope that if we see the Blues again we will see them on the winning side of things because they now have an 0-2 record when we see them, which makes me feel like we're the curse.    Whether or not we see the Blues again this season remains up in the air, but we will definitely return to FCBL action next season if this was our last game this season.