The Chillicothe Mudcats and Sedalia Bombers, combatants in last year's inaugural MINK League championship series, gave an impressive potential preview of a 2010 title rematch Saturday afternoon.
Behind former Mudcat TS Reed's perfect day at the plate, including an eighth-inning hit by pitch which eventually led to his scoring the tiebreaking and winning run, the host Bombers eked out a 6-5 victory to complete a sweep of the teams' two-game regular-season series.
Hosing Chillicothe a second time at the Liberty Park Stadium, the Bombers, soon to officially clinch the league's South Division title, overcame a third-inning 2-0 deficit with a run in the fourth and two each in the fifth and sixth. They then shook off Tyson Parks' game-tying, three-run home run in the eighth, which gave him four RBIs for the day, to prevail.
After losing reliever Derek McGowan's pitch nicked Reed's jersey to put him aboard to open the home eighth, a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk to Travis McComack set the stage for Chillicothe to bring in its closer, Steve Martin, to try to escape the jam.
He fanned Texas A&M teammate Parker Ray on a 2-2 pitch before going to 2-2 on No. 3 hitter Jeremy Patton. Recently having joined the team, the Bombers third baseman – previously hitless in four trips in the contest – pounded a hit into center field and Reed beat the throw home for the 6-5 edge.
Sedalia closer Dan Kickham then rolled through the bottom third of the Chillicothe lineup 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth for the save. Despite giving up the home run, setup reliever Jake Powers ended up getting the win, although he also took a blown save.
Chillicothe's tying three-run rally in the eighth began when Casey Solem's grounder toward first baseman Ray, normally a catcher, got past his glove for what was ruled an error, even though Mudcats assistant coach Chris Emanuel told the C-T he didn't think Ray even touched it with the leather. The ruling by the Sedalia official scorekeeper, who was unaware of its impact, prevented Solem from extending his hitting streak to 16 games as he was hitless his first three times up and did not bat again after that.
Powers then walked Templeton after a couple of two-strike pitches wre fouled, bringing Parks to the dish.
The Bombers got their chance to come back from the early deficit when starting pitcher Zach Hardoin, a lefty from the University of Missouri, retired 12 of the last 13 batters he faced. The only person to reach against him was Mark Robinette, whose two-out walk in the sixth was eradicated when Jose Behar threw him out trying to steal. On that play, Robinette was ejected by the field umpire, joining head coach Adam Steyer on the sidelines. Steyer was thumbed by the same arbiter back in the third inning for arguing a "safe" call on a pickoff attempt at second base. A few pitches after the coach's ejection, the runner ruled "safe" was able to score Sedalia's first run on a sacrifice fly which otherwise would have been the third out.
Saturday's home victory lifted Sedalia's league record to 25-5 and its overall mark to 28-5. The Bombers are close to mathematically clinching their division's title and are almost guaranteed to have the best league-play record when the season ends in less than two weeks. That would give them the right. as they had a year ago, to host games two and, if needed, three of the league title series.
The Mudcats, who'd climbed into a tie with the Clarinda A's for first place in the North the night before when those teams won single games and former leader St. Joseph was swept by Excelsior Springs, dipped to 17-11 overall and 15-11 in the league. Because St. Joseph and Excelsior Springs were only a half-game behind the co-leaders at the start of Saturday and were to play each other that night, Chillicothe's defeat meant the Fish would drop back out of first place by the end of the day, regardless of what Clarinda did.
The A's and Mudcats began Saturday tied because the second game of Clarinda's Friday doubleheader against the Ozark Generals was halted by fog in the fourth of seven innings and could not be resumed.
Clarinda led 5-4 at the time, but because the Generals had not received at least half of their at-bats in the scheduled seven-inning contest and play was terminated by an act of God, similar to a rain interruption, all of the action figures to be wiped away by rule. In that case, the game would have to be restarted from the beginning, if it becomes necessary and can be arranged.
The development further complicates an expanded 2010 MINK League schedule already adversely affected by a wet summer. It is becoming increasingly likely that, logistically, not all rainouts will be able to be made up prior to the scheduled dates of the three-game league playoffs, which are ticketed for one game a day July 23-25.
An option may be to push the start of the best-of-three series - formatted for the division champion with the better league record to play on the road in game one and then host game two and, if needed, game three – back to July 24 to give an extra date (July 23) for possible make-up games. Since, if required, a decisive third game would be played at the same site as game two, a possibility could be for it to be played as a doubleheader.
With currently only five teams committed to the Clarinda-hosted National Baseball Congress World Series-qualifying Central USA Regional Tournament, that double-elimination event may not require as many days to complete the week of July 26 and might be able to be delayed a day or two. If so, that might avoid the need for the potential third league-title-series game to be piggybacked with the second.
Another option could be to use July 23-24 as make-up dates and convert the title playoff to a single, winner-take-all game, since both clubs already would be assured of berths in the NBC World Series.
The downside of delaying the league championship series and then the regional tournament is if rain hits during those and forces more postponements.
If league officials and team representatives, some of whom inevitably seem to come to such deliberations with widely-disparate, parochial perspectives, decide the league playoff series cannot be compacted or delayed, the choice may be – if the teams in contention have not played all of their league contests – to determine the North champion strictly by winning percentage.
That carries an inherent inequity as, in all likelihood, the teams would not have played an equal number of games. Even if they had, some probably would have played more games against "better" teams and their winning percentage might be slghtly diminished because of that.
