by Nicholas Cipolla
Steve Vlahopoulos crushed a 2 out double that hit the wall in left field. The score is now tied at one in the sixth inning pic.twitter.com/hvjLuxcHZy
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 28, 2021
Ryan Annunziato was clutch when the Dodgers needed him most, at the bat and on the mound.
Before any of this happens, we need to talk about the first three-and-a-half innings.
During that timeframe, we were treated to a pitchers’ duel. We had almost no offense throughout these innings and both teams’ defenses were playing mistake-free baseball, that is until the bottom of the fourth inning.
With a runner on second and two outs, Nick Schimmel hit a ground ball to third base, the throw was wide and pulled the first baseman into Schimmel where he unfortunately caught the worst end of a collision, allowing Schimmel to reach but more importantly, score a run to give Dodgers Nation a 1-0 lead. However this was short lived.
In the top of the 6th, The Spikes were threatening with a runner on second with two outs. Steve Vlahopoulos stepped up and crushed a ball that went all the way to the left field wall, scoring the run and tying the game at 1.
This leads to the main event, bottom of the 6th inning no one out. Ryan Annunziato hit a first pitch lazer into the right center gap that would make exit velo fans smile ear-to-ear, this knocked in two runs and gave Annunziato a triple to give his team a 3-1 lead
The next batter, Chirs Downes hit a bloop single to right to knock in Annunziato to make it 4-1. A few batters later, a snap throw to third by the catcher allowed the runner to score the fourth run of the inning and fifth of the game making it a 5-1 game in favor of the Dodgers.
Post game interview with Ryan Annunziato after some late game heroics secured Dodgers Nation with the win pic.twitter.com/rGKJBjJprl
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 28, 2021
Once again, the Diamond Spikes made life difficult. An RBI groundout with a throwing error gave them two back as the Spikes only trailed by two runs at this point. However, Annunziato weathered the storm and got the next batter to line out to save the Dodgers Nation perfect season, giving them a 5-3 victory over the Diamond Spikes.
