Matthew's Finest Hour

Matthew’s team won last night’s championship game 23 – 17. He had his best game ever, despite spending part of the day in the doctor’s office with an infected finger. Coach Turner said afterwards they couldn’t have won without Matthew.

Matthew’s long two-out double to left drove home a slow runner from second-base, with the fifth run of the first inning.

He pulled a line drive into the left-centerfield corner for an RBI triple in the third. The ball bounced twice and hit the fence! Then Ryan produced a swinging bunt that the pitcher fielded. The pitcher held Matthew at third, but when the pitcher looked at Ryan Matthew danced further off third, regaining the pitcher’s attention. This allowed Ryan to advance to second. Matthew then scampered home when Carson hit the ball to the third baseman.

Matthew hit one even further in the fifth. With one out and nobody on he fly the ball to deep right center. Though not a line drive, the ball still bounced twice and hit the fence. Had he pulled it a bit more it might’ve been a home run! Matthew pulled into second with an easy double. He had to hold at second when the next batter grounded to the third baseman, but then Matthew scored from second on a grounder to the second-baseman.

Matthew fielded the pitcher position in two of the five innings. He threw out two runners…while playing other positions! In the third inning he played second base, and he cleanly fielded a grounder off the bat of his former teammate and buddy Mihir, and threw him out at first. This helped hold the Defenders to only two runs in the inning.

In the fourth inning Matthew played left field. The Defenders had runners on first and second when a pop fly headed toward Matthew in left center. He came close to catching it in the air, but immediately picked the ball up off the ground. As I hollered for him to throw the ball to third, Matthew instead fired a strike to Alex at second to force the runner.

Matthew was on deck when Alex drove in the last two runs of the game. He finished the year with at least five straight hits. Using a productivity points system, Matthew was the most productive of players that batted only three times. Only one non-first-baseman who batted four times was more productive (He ranked high Saturday as well).

The players voted for All-Stars back around the first of May. At that time I reviewed the roster and realized there were more deserving players ahead of Matthew than there were roster spots. Though Matthew finished strong, last night Coach Turner was apologetic while relaying the news that Matthew had just missed out on the All-Star team. It was great that he was considered!