Game 39 Recap: It Was Not 8-7
Coast Drown Ballers 14-1, Complete Three-Game Sweep
by Joe Horton
After two closely contested games that went down to the the last innings, last at-bats, last swings, Thursday’s contest in Long Beach was not. The Oakland Ballers were victim to the Long Beach Coast’s first franchise complete game, as Garrett Van Deventer went the distance, needing only 84 pitches to hold the Ballers’ offense to one run on nine hits. Van Deventer came from the Pecos League, full of even more run-friendly diamonds (the game I saw in Santa Fe last week ended up 32-23), and was only signed to the squad at the beginning of June.
His low pitch count benefitted heavily from the Coast defense turning five double plays, much to the chagrin of B’s broadcaster Gareth Kwok: “Ballers just cannot sustain the momentum when they get the leadoff man on,” he said in the top of the sixth after those five double plays and a B caught stealing. He was referring to this game, but he might well have been referring to the whole first half of the season: chased by high expectations, the consistent complete performance has eluded them. Oakland gave up 9 runs between the seventh and eighth innings.
On an otherwise flush-and-forget night, what might get lost in the score alone were clear highlights from Nick Leehey’s 3-for-4 effort that continues his stretch of great play and a strong starting pitching performance from Griffin Smith. Smith, from Washington State, went six innings, giving up five runs (three earned) while striking out four. Wrote Smith of his approach tonight, “I threw a lot of sinkers arm side and cutters glove side. I mixed my cutter and curveball well against both righties and lefties, filled up the zone, and trusted my defense to make plays behind me. Going forward, I just want to keep the ball down, stay efficient, and go deeper into games.”
Long Beach is now 31-8. At the same point last season, the Ballers were 28-10 on their way to the modern Pioneer League record of 73-23. The Ballers return to the upper half of the state for a weekend series in Modesto before coming back home to Raimondi on Tuesday to host the Roadsters.
Odds & Ends:
The Long Beach Coast have not lost a series yet this season, which rightfully gives them reasons to be cocky. But one opponent they haven’t beaten is the setting Southern California sun in their home plate HTN camera shot, which afforded me the snarky opportunity to look up “tonalism”: an American artistic movement (c. 1880–1920) in which painters emphasized atmosphere, muted light, and emotional mood over precise detail or literal representation, often using subdued colors and soft transitions of tone. So there.
It was a relatively quick death by Ballers’ standards, with the game clocking in at 2h36. The B’s will return to Long Beach for two more midweek series this July, the 14-16 and 21-23.
The Ballers, 16-23, lost their 23rd game last year on the final day of the season, Sept. 7.
Photos from Long Beach from Bella Cortez.
Joe Horton is the editor of Dispatches from Raimondi.
