On Saturday afternoon in the Arizona Fall League, the Surprise Saguaros played Mesa for the league title. They went down 3-0 in the first, then had a 5-0 deficit by the third inning. Surprise ended up losing 6-1 to drop the championship game. The Saguaros had just two hits in the game.
Eric Wood was the only Pirate in the starting lineup. He batted third and played left field. Wood grounded out to third base on a 2-0 pitch to end the top of the first inning. He struck out swinging to end the fourth, as the Mesa pitcher (Dylan Covey) retired the first 12 batters he faced. Wood lined out to left field in the seventh. He came up with two outs in the ninth and struck out looking to end the game.
Alex McRae came out to pitch the third inning and his first pitch hit the lead-off batter. Two pitches later, he got a line out to center field for the first out. McRae’s sixth pitch was deposited over the right-center fence for a two-run homer. That was followed by a single blooped down the right field line. McRae threw a wild pitch to put the runner on second, then walked the batter. He went 3-0 on the next batter before getting a grounder that resulted in an out at second. He got out of the inning on his 22nd pitch, which was grounded out to shortstop. Just ten of those 22 pitches went for strikes and McRae was missing down in the zone a lot, with 4-5 pitches in the dirt. He topped out at 92 MPH.
We will have an AFL season recap tomorrow.
