Baseball Review // Record-Journal Expos, 8 Hartford Colts, 6 July 28th, 2022 Johnny Taylor Field, Hartford, CT GHTBL

Official Box Score :::

https://www.ghtbl.org/event/expos-colts-2/

Additional Photos :::

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=raisedbycassettes&set=a.7860064597368379

Going into this game, what is most interesting to me was the number of wins that the Hartford Colts had and the number of losses that the Record-Journal Expos had.  While the East Hartford Jets were knocked down to second place the night before, they took their fifth loss of the season and behind them sits the Vernon Orioles with six losses.  So, right now, as backwards as it may feel, it's not about who has the most wins but rather who has the fewest losses.

Likewise but in reverse, the Colts are sitting in seventh place with six wins.  Behind them are both the Bristol Greeners and Wallingford Cardinals, who only have five wins each.  The number of losses seems less relevant now, as it feels like a matter of who can have the most wins on the bottom of the standings.  The Colts, for example, are only one win away from catching the South Windsor Phillies.   Should the Colts pick up two wins they could move to sixth place and push the Phillies down to seventh (Coincidentally, the Colts and Phillies play in South Windsor on Sunday!)

This doesn't feel quite as important in the beginning of the season as it does now and really, thinking about not losing is the same thing as thinking about winning, but the Record-Journal Expos sit in first place at 16-4 where as the Jets have 17 wins but their 5 losses put them in second place.   So, at the same time, while the Colts only have 15 losses, if the Greeners or Cardinals were able to win two more games and get 7 wins they could sit ahead of them even though they have more losses overall.

It's such an odd way to think, but then in some ways it's self-defeating because you can't un-lose games.  If you have five losses, a win does mean you can somehow only get back to four losses.   So at that point all you can do is hope that the other team loses so they join you with five losses and maybe even get more losses than your team, but you can't really control other teams and what they do.  

This was the third and final meeting between these two teams this regular season and though the Expos had a pretty heavy win the first time they met, the second meeting was a close game which came down to a walkoff for the Expos.    The majority of what happened in this game happened within the first inning for the Expos and the second and third inning for the Colts.  It was very much a matter of what felt like both teams getting off to a rough start and then settling in during the second half of the game.

Alden Halfinger started pitching this game for the Hartford Colts and through a series of walks, a HBP, a wild pitch and some solid hits by the Expos, the Colts took a really big first inning deficit which it didn't seem like they would be able to make up.   But the Colts scored their first run in the bottom of the second inning on a wild pitch, then a nice hit brought in two more runs.   The bottom of the third inning would be similar, as the Colts would put up three more runs and battle back, despite the Expos pitching change from Justin Marks to Jeff Massicotte.

The rest of the game would go virtually but not completely scoreless and Alden Halfinger stayed in and stuck it out.   It's just one of those things when you get down by five runs or more it can feel like you can't get back up, but the Colts really dug themselves out of that hole and nearly came back to win this game.  

While the Expos held onto first place, they go to Bristol Central one last time for this regular season and meet the 8th place Greeners on Saturday night.   The Hartford Colts finish an earlier game which was suspended and then play a full game after that Sunday night in South Windsor against the Phillies.   The Phillies are also scheduled to play M&T People's tonight at Johnny Taylor Field, which means by Monday the Colts could be in sixth place.