by Gabe Zoda
After the game we caught up with WP James Haupt to talk about today’s DH and his CG on the mound. pic.twitter.com/vIFiVePEDz
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 22, 2021
Whenever you have two good teams going up against each other, you know it’s going to be a good game. But when you get a DH between two good teams you get to watch 2 great games.
That’s exactly what was seen at Newfield HS when Team Steel Molinaro played against Phenom Baseball. Both teams would take one game of the DH and both of the games would only be decided by one run.
The first game would go in favor of Team Steel. They would take it by a score of 3-2 but the scoring wouldn’t start until the top of the 3rd.
This run would be scored by Ryan Suppa, who pinch ran for Ryan Yerkes. He started the inning by reaching base with an E-3. The next batter, Joseph Eger , would then move him over to third after a 2B.
Connor Buonconsiglio would walk after making it a bases loaded situation with no outs. Then next two batters would strikeout making it a 2 out situation and just before getting out of a jam, Tyler Young gets HBP which allows Ryan Suppa to score.
Team Steel would continue to score runs in the top of the 4th. In this inning they would score 2 more to increase their lead to 3-0.
Connor Riegal would start off the action for Steel with a one out single, The bases would quickly get loaded as Zachary Skupp and Ryan Suppa were both hit by pitches.
The first run of the inning would be driven in by Connor Buonconsiglio who singled to the left side. The next run would score in the next AB.
In this AB, Ryan Suppa would get a good read on a breaking ball in the dirt that would kick away from the catcher, he used that to come in and score the second run of the inning for Team Steel giving them 3-0 advantage.
Team Phenom were held scoreless until the bottom of the 6th (which was the last inning due to time restraints). A massive part of this was due to the SP for Team Steel. He ended the game with the win after throwing 5 innings, Striking out 9 players (including a stretch of 6 in a row) and walking 3 batters.
In the bottom of the 6th though, Team Steel would go to the Bullpen to try and get the close but Phenom Baseball weren’t going to go into game 2 after getting shutout in the 1st game.
This Inning would start with a walk to Leadoff batter Michael Arbuiso. This was then followed up by a single from Cole Conte to put runners on first and second.
The first run came in after a monster 2B off the bat of Michael Charello that almost scored Conte from first but was held up at third after a good throw in from the outfielder.
Phenom Baseball would then deploy a small-ball strategy and had Anthony Baggetta lay down a sacrifice bunt to bring in the second run. Unfortunately for Phenom Baseball, they couldn’t make the comeback but were able to give them some momentum going into the second game. The game would end 3-2 in favor of Team Steel Molinaro.
Game 2
FINAL SCORE:
Phenom Baseball 3,
Team Steel Molinaro 2,
WP James Haupt (CG, 3Ks, 4Hs) pic.twitter.com/bne4y1RF1n— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 22, 2021
Game 2 would start about 15 minutes after game one and Phenom Baseball showed how important it was to grab that momentum at the end of the first game. The second game ended in a 3-2 score but this time it would be Phenom Baseball that would take the win and they started the scoring early on in the game.
The second inning would be where the action would kick off on the offensive side as Phenom scored 2 runs on one swing to make it happen.
Anthony Baggetta and Michael Emanuele lead things off in the inning with back-to-back singles. Both of these runners would later advance to 2nd and 3rd.
Elijah Munoz had a crucial AB in this inning. He would ground one slowly that, at first, looked like a routine grounder. Anthony Baggetta then made a super smart baserunning play to disturb that.
The ball was grounded to the 3rd base side so the 3rd baseman was going for the ball, Baggetta saw that and he ran almost half way down the base path. The pitcher saw this and tried getting him out at 3rd but there was nobody home so Baggetta returned safely at 3rd and Munoz was safe at first with the FC.
That would bring up Brandon Iaveroni, who did a really nice job reading an incoming curve and then drove a hard ground ball through the 5-6 hole that would allow Baggetta and Emanuele to score. That gave them a 2-0 lead.
Phenom would hold that lead until the bottom of the 5th inning where Team Steel would score 1 to cut the lead to 1.
Ryan Yerkes would leadoff this inning with an infield single to the right side. Yerkes gave it all he had running down the base path and it paid off big with the single.
Yerkes getting on was crucial for this inning because a couple batters later, Tyler Young would drive him in. He would do this with a super long shot that carried past the left fielder. Yerkes once again displayed his hustle as he went all away from 1st to home to score in Team Steel’s first run of the game.
Phenom wouldn’t wait long to respond as they would put up a run in the top of the 6th to make it a 3-1 ballgame. This run was scored by Emanuele on a wild pitch. Emanuele got to third after walking to leadoff the inning then going 1st to 3rd after a single from James Haupt.
The back and forth scoring continued in the bottom of the 6th when Team Steel would get the lead back down to 1.This inning started with a leadoff walk to Ryan Suppa. He would then get out due to a force on Domenic Cassino’s FC. Cassino would then go from 1st to 3rd on a 2B from Matthew Tusiani-Eng in the left center gap.
Cassino would then come in to score after a grounder from Connor Riegal with one out. That run made it a 3-2 game heading into the 7th and final inning.
After a scoreless top of the 7th, Team Steel had one more shot to get it done but on the bump was James Haupt for Phenom Baseball. Haupt was attempting to get a complete game and wasn’t going to let one more inning get in his way.
After having 2 runners on base, he was able to get the final out the same way he got most outs in this game, by pitching to contact. The ground out ended the game and got Haupt the win and a complete game.
Both teams stack up at near the top of the 16u American Division so they both look to continue their strong seasons after splitting the DH.
