Especially Memorable Games

[kq76]

Does anyone here save especially memorable games?

I had this game today and it was so good I decided I should save its replay/log. And then I typed this up.

Background: It's a 156 game a season league, we, the Gulfport Seagulls, are 94-54, and we're trying our best to get 100 wins (we need to finish 6-2). We have a couple power hitters, but, really, the team is built on speed and pressing the opposition into making mistakes. And this game it worked just so beautifully!

Let's take it up in the top of the 7th inning. It's tied 1-1, we're playing our divisional rival, the New Orleans Showboats, and we have our utility player Wilson Hernandez on 3rd after a double and a sac bunt. 1 out. It's obviously a tight game and could easily go either way from here.

Our injury replacement 2B Dallas Barden, who's been rather frustrating at times to watch hit, is up to bat. It's not looking good. He immediately puts down a bunt. What the hell?? Wilson, again on 3rd, immediately takes off for home. Double what the hell!! The pitcher comes, the catcher comes, the 1B comes. Wilson slides, he's safe! 2-1, yes!

Then what's this? Their fielder looks to throw to 1B, but no one is covering 1B! Dallas makes it easily. Hah! Sweet.

Now our power-hitting OF/DH Dennis Stephens walks up to the plate. I'm feeling good. We're up a run. Maybe I shouldn't feel this way, but there's a good chance our bullpen can shut them out the rest of the way. Still, more runs would be nice.

0-0: Ball. But Dallas takes off for 2B! He might not be able to hit well, but he can run like the wind! He should make it easily (60-80-80 run ratings). But what's this? Their catcher jumps up and fires the ball to 2B! It's off the mark, sails past the infielder, and Dallas keeps going all the way to 3B. Hah! You should have known not try to throw out Dallas Barden!

Now what? 1-0: Ball. 2-0: Called Strike. 2-1: Foul Ball. 2-2: Hard hit smack Single, right between 3B and SS! Dallas scores easily. We're up 3-1! Our bullpen should definitely be able to hold that.

After a SB by Stephens, a IBB to our other power-hitting OF/1B Dylan Farmer (he gets intentionally walked a lot), and a double steal by them (they don't have great speed, but their SB ratings are both pretty good), we see 2 groundouts and we're out. Okay, that's fine. They certainly tried. We're still up by 2.

To the bottom of the 7th we go. A single, a double, and now it's 3-2. Okay, that's not ideal, but we're still up by 1.

Top of the 8th. We get a single by utility man Wilson again, but nothing other than that. Wilson is actually the one player on our team I don't really care for because he has a "selfish" personality, but he's actually come through for us a lot of the time.

Bottom of the 8th. They get a single (no worries), a sac bunt (runner goes to 2nd), a strikeout, we bring in a new pitcher (oh no...). They get another single and their other guy goes to 3rd (okay, don't panic). We walk the next guy, bases loaded (oh geez..). At least there's 2 out, we just need an out. We bring in another new pitcher. I normally don't like seeing relievers come in mid-inning, but the other guy didn't have it so let's hope this guy does. He certainly doesn't have good stats though (6.15 ERA).

Shot to SS and our guy easily tosses it to 2nd for the 3rd out. Phew!

Top of the 9th. 2 straight outs and up comes our best power-hitter, Dylan Farmer, again. Solo shot to RF. Yes! Take that, N'Oleans Rowboats! We're back up by 2, 4-2.

Another one of our speedsters, OF Lawrence Winter, steps up and smacks a single above the ahead of their 1B and he takes 1st. First pitch and he takes off, somewhat surprisingly. Ah crap, he got a bad jump. He can run, but he's actually not that great of a base thief. We're out.

Bottom of the 9th. Okay, we can do this, we've got this. Jared Sheppard comes in to pitch. He's actually not our best reliever, by a long shot, but he does better as a closer than as a MR so we leave him as a CL. We like to use our best relievers as fireman in high leverage situations anyway. (Matt, if you read this, please add the Goose Egg stat. )

Single up the middle (eh). Shot to LF, but our speedster Lawrence Winter is there to get it easily. Grounder to 2nd, throw to first, and that's the ball game folks!

Yes! We're now 95-54. We only need to go 5-2 in our last 7 to get 100 wins. And what got us this win? Our forcing the issue, our being aggressive on the base paths. I love it!

I didn't even mention our best player, the young superstar CF Johan Laporte (he came in to pinch hit, but that was when Lawrence was caught stealing) or our Ace Jason Reynolds (he's been out most of the year with a torn UCL and won't be back for another 13 months!). The future is looking good.

[BirdWatcher]

Thanks for sharing this- it is exactly the sort of immersive flavor I love to read about regarding OOTP.

What you said about the utility player Wilson Hernandez reminded me of a similar situation I had in my early days as an OOTP'er, playing historically (a Rockies dynasty starting with their inaugural season). I had a light-hitting utility infielder with bad makeup (I think he was considered unmotivated)- I believe it was Rey Ordonez, but I don't exactly recall now- who also just seemed to come up with the big clutch hits way more often than would be expected. I kept him on the team much longer than I would have otherwise just because of that. (Not suggesting that intellectually I actually believe in clutch hitting as a repeatable skill, though I don't completely dismiss it either, but the anecdotal impression was strong enough for me to want to keep the player.)