Crusaders News! 2035.35 - Crusaders Beat The Defending Champs in Seven!

[Ted]

Holy Crap!
October 20th, 2035
Offen Sichtlich der Kunstgriff

Oh My Glob! We won a playoff series! Against the defending champs even! I can't .. . I just ... I don't know what to say. I mean, I was all positive last time around, but well, as your friendly neighborhood Crusaders blogger, I had to be. You see, despite making the playoffs 8 of the last 10 seasons, our Crusaders haven't won a series since 2029 as a wild card against Seattle. That's it. Our sole playoff series victory since running the table back in 2024. That's also the last time our Crusaders got past the Doubleday. Before last night? Eight tries. One success. A 1-8 record since our Landis. Five losses in the Doubleday (four as division winner), three in the Geoghagen.

But this is a year for breaking curses, right? No April funk. Batters hit. The late season swoon occurred, but we broke out of it! We. Won. A. Playoff. Series! Against San Fernando. The defending Champs! In seven games! Go us! Let's look at how it happened.

Game 1 - Luis Gracia came out looking strong, and pitched around a two out single to end the first with no damage. Then Claudio Defazio was Claduio Defazio and lead off the game with a walk, moved to second after another walk, stole third and scored on a wild throw to third. Flynn Johnson erased the error in dramatic fashion with a homer, and after that it was all Gracia, who outdueled Feliciano Rafael for seven shutout innings. Defazio would homer again in the 5th to give the Crusaders a 4-0 lead. Reynaldo Garza was ineffective in the 8th, giving up two runs, but the rest of the pen nailed down the victory. Things are LOOKING GOOD. Walks, steals, homers, dominant starting pitching. Ladies and gentlement, I give you Crusaders baseball!

Game 2 - Well folks, as good as Gracia was in the first game, Miguel Ramos was not in game two. San Fernando's offense is just too powerful to shut down consistently, and they powered their way to a 5-0 lead on homers by Jayden Harsnett and Jeffrey Cunningham by the middle of the fourth. The Crusaders would attempt to climb back into it with two runs of their own in the bottom of the frame on a Fernando Moreno blast, and cut the lead to 5-3 when Nico Eijpe doubled in Jesus Flores in the bottom of the 6th. But the teams would trade two run homers in the 8th (Tai Hoi Wie and Esteban Cuervo) for a 7-5 score. The bullpen would yield another run in the top of the ninth and the game ended 8-5.

Game 3 - This one hurt folks. I feel like I'm giving it away, but you already know the outcome. Cisco Morales just hadn't been good recently, but he buckled down and gave the Crusaders seven innings of one run ball. When he left the game, our beloved ballclub had a 2-1 lead. Things were tense, but looking good! I thought, "Offie! That was a gutty start. I mean, wow! Morales struck out ONE guy. One! He pitched around six hits and two walks! What an effort. Twelve ground ball outs! And you know what? We have the best bullpen in the league. This one's as good as ours." Well Reynaldo Garza was responsible for another run when he let Jared Gillstrom lead of the innings with a single. He'd come out, but Gillstrom scored after stealing second and later being singled in by Harsnett. Rein Van Der Heyden was in the game at that point, and would come out for the ninth. Jean Luc Lacaze lead off with single, and Angel Garcia would also single. Lacaze advanced to third on the play. Two on, tie game, bottom of the ninth, no one out. Offie has ulcers. But Gillstrom then groudned out to second. Defazio calmly looked the runner back to third before throwing to first. Okay. Maybe there's hope. Alberto Franco signaled the intentional walk for Luis Maldonado to load the bases and put the double play back in order. "One ground ball Rein! Come on. Or a popup. Or strikout. Come on!" Juan Medonza lined a 1-1 pitch to right for a base hit. Lacaze scored. Game over. Offie is devastated. We HAD that one.

Game 4 - HAVE to win this one. HAVE TO! Can't go down three to one. Not after blowing game three. *sigh* It was never close. Jaime Mercado got tagged for seven runs over 4 and 2/3rds innings. The bullpen wouldn't allow any more. To add insult to injury, it was former California Crusaders who shut us down for 8 innings. He allowed only two runs on five hit. Defazio hadn't had a hit since game one by the way. I'll be honest. Even your ever cheerful Offie was pretty despondent at this point. I mean, we all knew that California isn't allowed to win in the playoffs. Certainly not in the Doubleday. Oh well. There's always next year. And game five I guess. Not like it will matter.

Game 5 - Gracia v Rafael part deux. San Fernado scored the first two runs of the game. Rafael pitched a complete game. The Crusaders ... won? We won? WE WON! Gracia was very good through 6.1 innings, allowing two runs while striking out seven. Chip Saunders singled in Jesus Flores in the 5th to get the Crusaders on the board. Then in the seventh, Fernando Moreno lined a 368 foot blast over the right field fence to score himself AND Bryan Robson for a 3-2 lead! I was running around in circles in the living room. Offie was screaming at the TV. Mama was screaming at Offie. Offie screamed at Mama. (Offie should not have done that). Esteban Cuervo added a mammoth, 489 foot insurance blast that seems like it should have counted for more than one run in the 8th, and this time, THE BULLPEN HELD ON! Crusaders win! We're going home for game six!

Game 6 - Jon Reed would take the mound for the Bears, and for the Crusaders we'd have ... LUIS GRACIA?!?!?! What? He just threw 102 pitches two days ago!!!! Offie, has to admit, he was pretty fired up after being pretty sure the series was over after game four. I guess Gracia was too? Maybe Alberto Franco thought, "Well, Gracia is 2-0 and everyone else is 0-3, so...." At this point, I'll admit, I had some rather silly thoughts about the possibility of Gracia pitching every inning for the rest of the playoffs. As one would expect however, he only lasted two and a third innings, giving up two runs, one earned in the opening frame. But you know, I really think his herculean effort lead to something special. This team no longer looked like the one that was hanging its head after game four, or chewing its nails in game five. The Crusaders answered with two in the bottom of the second and Gracia actually left a tied game. Flynn Johnson lead off the bottom of the third with a solo shot for a 3-2 lead. In the top of the fifth, Luis Maldonado doubled and eventually scored to tie the game, but Newman Watson would single home Defazio from second in the bottom of that inning to retake the lead. Watson would drive home Esteban Cuervo two innings later to make the game 5-3. It got tense in the eighth when Ares Papadias hit a solo shot off Guus Alberink to close the Bears within a run, but that was all the Aruban hurler would allow. He'd come back in the ninth to close the game out. We were going to game seven. At home. Miguel Ramos looking for redemption. Our Crusaders couldn't possibly lose.

GAME SEVEN! - Ramos versus Leon Ramirez. Ramos with something to prove. And wow did he look pumped. Redemption time! Okay, I'll admit, it didn't start so well. Abdelwahab Kamade lead off the game with a a single. Then after striking out Gilstrom, Ramos uncorked a wild one to let Kamade advance to second. Mendoza flied out, Wie would walk, followed by a Papadias single that scored Kamade. 1-0 Bears. Ramos would pop up Cunningham to end the inning and walked back to the dugout. He looked pretty deflated. After a Flores lead off walk, the Crusaders went quietly in the first. Ramos wasn't even in the dugout during the half inning. I panicked! I thought, "Oh no, is he hurt? This can't be! We were down 3-1 and now it's game seven! Not like this!" But as the top of the second inning started, Ramos was back, and he looked ... umm .. well .. pissed. He was done with this nonsense. Five and a third more innings, no more hits. One walk. TWELVE more strikeouts. Seems like he got himself .. um .. sorted out in between innings. In the bottom of the second the Crusaders took the lead. Bryan Robson doubled and scored on a Jesus Fernandez triple, and was himself singled in by Jesus Flores. After that, it was Ramos's game until the seventh. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have pulled him, but Franco must have been thinking about later series. Reynaldo Garza came in and got the only better he faced to end the seventh. LOOGY Fernando Suarez got Luis Maldonado to start the eighth. Then ROOGY Oscar Bolase came in for Abdelwahab Kamade ... and allowed a base hit. Well friends, now it was one on, one out, one run lead, top of the eighth, game seven. Garza, Suarez, Borlase burned. Rafeal Suarez strained an oblique back in the game 4 loss. Alberink threw too many pitches yesterday to come in. Van der Heyden had been shaky earlier in the series, bit was the only bullpen option left other than Ricardo Diaz, who had really faded down the stretch. So into the game came ... Cisco Morales!!! Gilstrom flyout, Mendoza strikeout. Threat ended. Inning over. In the bottom of the eighth, Claudio Defazio was again Claudio Defazio. Hit by pitch. Stole second. Fernando Moreno intentional walk. Defazio didn't care and stole third, Moreno smartly advanced to second on the throw. Vazquez flyout, Defazio scored insurance run one. Newman Watson singled home Moreno for insurance run two. Morales would come back for the top of the ninth with a three run lead and promptly yield a double to Tai Hoi Wie, who then advanced to third on a Papadias single and score on a sac fly (That's a run on sentence, but hold on, Offie's almost to the good part!). Angel Gaarcia would walk, and now the Bears had runners first and second with the winning run at the plate looking remarkably like one Jayden Harsnett. Ugh. Offie remembered what he did to us earlier in the series. He fouled off the first two Morales offerings, and then grounded to second for a 4-6 fielders choice! One out to go! One out away from the Cartwright! Morales just had to get Luis Maldonado and the series was ours! Ball one. OH GOD! Don't get behind to Maldonado. Don't go 2-0! STRIKE! Okay! 1-1. Come on Cisco! The third pitch of the at bat! Cisco delivers, Maldonado swings ... and weakly grounds the ball to one Claudio Defazio, who guns it to first for the last out of the game! CRUSADERS WIN! GAME OVER! SERIES OVER! POSTSEASON .. NOT OVER!

[RonCo]

Nice write up of an exciting series. Congrats to the Crusaders.

[Ted]

Thanks man. I didn't realize how close all the games were until I started writing it up. All but one of them could have gone either way easily.