Coral Gables A's Stories: Long Time No See

Will the Coral Gables A's ever play against a different team?

The Coral Gables A’s, America’s funniest men’s league baseball team, lost in the championship series a few weeks ago to one of our bitter rivals. Our bitterest rivals is a team called South Dade Suela. The team we played, however, is an offshoot of them. Their official name is Team Venezuela. They rode a former Major League pitcher to a Game 2 and 3 victory after we took game 1. Frustrating stuff, but playing Suela, or their subsidiaries, is never easy. 

Now we’ve started a new season fresh with championship aspirations. Who would we be facing in our first game?  

Team Venezuela. Of course. 

Knew It

I was thinking about my first at bat the night before. I’m sitting at a bar watching the Florida Gators basketball team battle their way to the National Championship game as they went back and forth with Auburn in the Final Four. During a commercial break, I just got to thinking about what they’d try to do, and the answer seemed obvious. 

Every pitcher they have pounds the zone. First pitch strike. That’s the goal. They can afford to do this because Suela/Team Venezuela plays superb defense. It benefits them to pitch to contact as much as possible; the guys behind them are going to make the plays and it allows them to go deeper into games. Considering all this, I was confident the very first pitch they threw me would be a cookie fastball right down the heart of the plate. I would be ready, and swing out of my shoes. 

On the mound for them was the pitcher who started against us in Game 1 of the championship series. We beat him, but he’s solid. Fastball runs inside on righties and he has a good change-up. I came up with one out in the top of the first inning, ready to take advantage of what I guessed would be the best pitch I saw to hit all day. 

Sure enough. Middle-middle fastball begging to be hit a long way. I squared it up and deposited it into the parking lot behind left-center. 1-0. 

The offense kept rolling after that. Nick singled after me, and Willy doubled two batters after to bring him home and make it 2-0 after the top of the 1st. 

Welcome Back

Willy, fresh off his double, took the mound for us. Willy is a major contributor with both his arm and his bat, but decided to take last season off. He’s back, and looked excellent from the start, striking out the first batter on three pitches. An error in the field hurt him after that, unfortunately, and two walks and a fielder’s choice later, they had gotten one run back on us. 2-1, us. 

Staying Hot

Wes led off the 2nd inning with a sharp single through the right side, then stole second. The next two batters couldn’t get the job done, sending X to the plate with two outs. X unloaded on a ball, lining one over the left fielder’s head for a double, scoring Wes. I walked, then Nick walked, loading the bases. Matt followed Nick with a beautiful battle of an at bat that culminated with a single through the left side, bringing home another run. 4-1, good guys. 

Willy continued making good pitches. We didn’t let him down this time, as he went 1-2-3 in the bottom half of the 2nd. Despite a leadoff single by Yuca, their pitcher escaped with a scoreless 3rd inning. Willy threw up another zero himself, striking out another hitter in the process. I hit a two-out single in the 4th inning and stole second. Nick then muscled a two-strike flair over the infield, and I got a great jump due to there being two outs. 5-1 now.

We made another error behind Willy in the bottom half of the 4th, as is our way. Willy struck out the next hitter, but walked the one after that. Two guys on now. One swing could put them right back in it. 

Willy is as soft-spoken as they come. Every now and then though, especially when he’s pitching, his quiet intensity will boil over and he’ll unleash a primal yell that makes you do a double take. “Did that come from him?” I’ve seen it a million times since I’ve played with him, but it’s shocking if you’ve never seen him pitch. 

He struck out the last two batters of the inning, letting out a VAMONOS COÑOOO at the top of his lungs after the one that ended the inning. It was gangster. We were up 5-1 after the 4th inning and playing excellent baseball. 

Newbies

The 5th inning was a couple new players’ times to shine. One was Brayan, our new catcher who has a cannon behind the dish and hits the ball with authority. Yuca led off the inning with a sharp single, and Brayan followed him with another single, his first hit as an A. Wes then walked to load the bases, which brought up Rey, an outfielder and third baseman. Rey worked a long at bat and came out on top, drawing a full count walk that brought a run in. X brought in another run on a fielder’s choice a few batters later, and the inning ended with us up 7-1.

Matt

Willy was done after four innings. He didn’t allow a hit, struck out five, and gave up one unearned run. Four innings was plenty for him on this day, however, due to him not having pitched in over six months. Insert Matt. 

No problemo there. Matt worked around a single to throw a scoreless 5th. We tacked on two more in the top half of the 6th, after I got hit by a pitch, Nick walked, we each advanced on a passed ball, and Matt got his third hit of the day. 9-1.

Do I Stink?

My season was off to a great start with the bat, obviously. On the mound? Not so much. 

I replaced Matt after he threw a scoreless 5th inning. I really just wanted to pitch to contact here. We were up big; no need to let them claw back into the game by issuing free passes. 

They were making contact, alright. The inning started with three straight singles and a double. Nothing was hit particularly hard except for the double, but hey, that’s baseball. I settled down and struck out one after that. Three runs came across due to the flurry of hits to start the inning. 

Amed Doesn’t Stink

Amed came in to pitch the 7th and did much better than me. He struck out two and worked around a walk, and due to there being a time limit and several innings taking a long time, the game finished after that. 

9-4. Final.

Bittersweet

Welp. Always good to beat those guys. Can we do it when it matters most? Unfortunately, recent results say no. They had pretty much the same group of players, apart from the Major League pitcher (kind of important), and we whooped their asses like I know we could have in the championship series. Talk about a tease. 

Recent trends will be rectified, however. We’ll see how things shake up once the playoffs start. 

Your Coral Gables A’s are off to a 1-0 start. Stay tuned for more shenanigans as the season unfolds. 

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