ABL Week 11 - vs Perth Heat

We had a crucial series against the Perth heat. It was important to win as many games as we could to ensure ourselves a play off spot.

Aiden Francis stayed at my place and we caught th train in the morning to the airport. Since we had to be at the airport at 6:45am we caught a 5:35am train. Wasn't very fun. Pretty sure I fell asleep on the train and was awoken by an old lady sneezing

I was lucky to have a spare seat next to me on the flight which was perfect so I caught up on some sleep. I slept for about 2 1/2 hours and when I woke up I started to watch the third Transformers movie, which in my opinion, is the strongest of the trilogy. A funny thing happened on the flight. Since I fell asleep before the plane took off I forgot to turn my iPhone to aero plane mode. About 10 minutes before landing I received a text message in the air. I thought it was quite funny, and the plane landed safely despite my phone not being on aero plane mode.

When we arrived at the hotel I took a nap and then went to meet up with one of my friends Rebecca. I only get to come to Perth once a year so I make sure I try and catch up with all my Perth friends.

Game 1
We went down 4-3. The game was ours to win but we made some bad mistakes at the wrong time that really hurt us. It was basic fundamental errors that ended up being the death of us in this game.

On day 2 in Perth I woke up pretty late so I just laid in bed for a while before deciding to go for a walk to the shops nearby as well as picking up some lunch.

Game 2
We came out on top 4-2 thanks to another one of our early offensive outbursts. We scored 4 runs in the top of the 1st and that was all we needed as Chris Oxspring delivered a quality start going 7 strong innings giving up only 2 runs. Tyler Collins led the offence going 3 for 4 but the big blow came from Alex Johnson in the 1st inning when he hit a bases clearing double to give us the 4-0 lead.

Day 3 in Perth I decided to be really lazy and just relax in bed watching movies. I got up once to go get lunch but as soon as I finished I was back in my room watching movies again.

Game 3
We've had plenty of heartbreaking losses during the season but this one seemed to hurt a little more seeing as we were so close to winning and clinching our postseason birth. Brad Thomas started and gave us 6 strong innings and gave up only 2 runs as he opposed another big leaguer, Virgil Vasquez who was equally impressive going 6 innings for 1 run. I came into the game in the 7th inning after our offense managed to tie the game up against Perth reliever Cameron Lamb. I went 3 innings giving up 1 hit and striking out 3. The hit I gave up was to Tim Kennelly and I can honestly say that is was the hardest ball ever hit off me. Personally, I was extremely happy with this outing because of how badly Perth beat me up when they came to Sydney at the start of the season. Tim Kennelly wasn't done with hard hitting balls as he made the final blow in the bottom of the 15th inning hitting a walk off home run to send the Perth fans home happy. During the game I noticed that were a group of softball girls cheering for us, I'm not sure if they were from Sydney but it's always nice to have a bit of support on the road. Also my friends Tenielle and Rebecca were at the game, and it was definitely nice to hear someone yell out "Go Todd!" when you're on the road.

Day 4 in Perth was quite enjoyable. Tenielle came and picked me up from the hotel and I went to her house to meet her puppy Freya, who is now my most favourite puppy of all time. After many attempts to try and get her into the pool, Freay only got her feet wet. Once we were done trying to get Freya to swim we went to pick up Rebecca before going to Hillary's Boat Harbour for lunch. It was a pretty good view for lunch, that's for sure.

Tenielle trying to get Freya into the pool

View from lunch

Game 4
Aiden Francis started and despite going 7 inning we were unable to score any runs to back him up as we were shut down by the Perth pitching staff. We went down 3-0 in what was a very frustrating game. Perth starter Warwick Saupold continued his good form and went 6 2/3 innings and didn't allow multilple base runners get on base in any inning.

Last day in Perth we were getting ready for a few possible scenarios. If results went our way and we beat Perth we would have finished the season in 2nd place and stayed in Perth for the next week. The other scenario was that results don't go our way and we end the season in 5th place and miss out on the playoffs. Luckily results did go our way and we found out we had made the playoffs before our game had begun. Now all we had to do was win to finish in 2nd place.

Game 5
Unfortunately, we didn't win and went down 7-2. We were never really in the game as Perth scored runs in the first 3 innings and our bats were kept silent once again by the Perth starting pitcher.

So, as the last week came to a close, Perth ran out with 1st place, while Melbourne finished in 2nd, only 1 game ahead of 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place. Safe to say, it was a pretty close season and the playoffs should deliver some great baseball.