It's getting ugly in Portland. And I mean, real ugly.
Portland had lost 9 straight games. Over that span, 2 of them were in extra innings. Portland is 1-6 overall in extra inning games. More on that in a moment. Three of the other losses had been by one run. Portland is 2-8 in one-run games. More on that to come.
Portland traveled to Bikini looking to snap the losing streak. After leading 5-1 going to the bottom of the 5th, all looked good. But an error in the 5th led to 4 unearned runs that tied the game at 5-5. Portland took a 7-5 lead after 7, only to watch the Krill tie it back in the 8th and force extra innings. It's the extra inning that gives us our Kate's Kookies Moment of the Sim.
With 2 outs in the top of the 10th, Carlos Flores homered off Shea Valance to give the Lumberjacks the lead. That's not the moment. Instead the moment is in the bottom of the inning when 40-year old Renato Lacerda kept the mound. Lacerda and his 519 career saves was looking to secure the win for Portland as he had already pitched a scoreless 9th inning.
Bad thoughts crept into manager Mons Raider's mind when Lacerda surrendered a singled to Pedro Guzman to lead off the 10th. Lacerda and Keith Williams tangled in a 6 pitch at-bat that led Lacerda getting the win in the battle with a forced swinging strike 3 to Williams. That brought Pedro Jiminez to the plate. Jiminez strolled to the plate battling an 0-4 night and hoped to erase all of that with one swing. He didn't erase those thoughts. Instead, he hit a weak liner right to Hideaki Ohayashi at first base. Ohayashi snagged the soft liner in mid air. Pedro Gomez made the fatal mistake even little leaguers are taught. Rather than "freeze on a line drive", Guzman took two steps towards second base on contact and then froze still. Ohayashi raced to the bag and doubled Guzman off first to lock up the win for Portland.
"I guess when you skip out on spring training and don't play your first game until May, you forget simple base running decisions" commented one upset fan on the Krill post-game radio show. "Just completely boneheaded move by Guzman."
