Last night, was one of those very rare, very memorable games.  While I wonder if I will remember the players names years from now, I do not doubt that I will remember the experience of sitting in the stands of Joe Bruno Stadium and watching the Tri-City Valley Cats take on the Batavia Muckdogs.

As noted in the post from last night, this is the Semi-Finals for the New York Penn League, which is a short-season A-ball league.  Their play begins in late June, just after the draft and continues until last week, except for the few teams that get to advance to the play-offs.

While Tri-City just barely snuck in with the worst record of any of the three division winners, last night they showed they deserved to be there.  In the bottom of the first inning, they got the three lead-off batters on against Batavia’s best starting pitcher.  Then Marcus Nidiffer strode to the plate to knock in all three batters, and himself, with a blast to left center.  There were several home runs last night from the Valley Cats, and each one was a no-doubter as it left their bats.  Right from the start, the Cats were off to a 4-0 start.  The Batavia pitcher, John Gast, drafted in the 6th round of this year’s draft, gave up one more single before finally getting out of the inning.  The lead though gave the Valley Cats some swagger. Swagger that I thought would be the difference in this game.

The Muckdogs managed to finally get some base runners in the third, against the Cats pitcher Carlos Quevedo.  They strung together enough singles and a walk to get two runs over.  The score going into the bottom of the 4th was now 4-2.  Still that swagger was not gone.  Once again, Gast allowed singles to the two lead-off hitters, and Telvin Nash hit a blast to knock them all in.  Score now 7-2.  The ‘Dogs scored one more in the fifth, despite getting four guys on base.

The pitching for the Valley cats was really only as good as the defense. But the Valley Cats looked good on defense.  Its rare at this level that a team looks so sharp.  The throws were perfectly accurate.  They outfielders hit the right cutoff man.  The pitchers moved to cover first as if on auto-pilot.

The Valley Cats are the affiliate of the Houston Astros, which isn’t a team I think of when I think of sound fundamentals.  The Astros have only had two other minor league affiliates make it to the playoffs since 2007, which says quite a bit about their farm system.  But this team looked quite sharp on defense.  Perhaps there is some hope for those Astro’s.

The problem though for the Valley Cats last night was, without a doubt, their pitching.  Entering the 6th, the score was 7-3.  By the end of the Muckdogs half of the 6th, the score was 9-7. 3 pitchers combined to give up 7 hits and 6 runs.  And while I just got through telling you how good on defense the Cats were, some of these hits were seeing eye singles, and a some were blasts into the gaps.  The Cats second baseman has some trouble on a couple of plays, but both were cases that his range allowed him to get to things but not necessarily to get a throw off before the runner was sage at first.

So, with the score at 9-7, with the Muckdogs having rallied back and taken the lead, the Valley Cats lost their swagger.  About this time, the home plate umpire’s strike zone got a little crazy.  Strikes were getting called balls all over the place. At one point, he told a Valley Cat batter to take a base after being hit by a pitch, and then after the pitcher said it hit the bat, he called him back and called it a strike.   Batavia managed a couple of walks against their pitchers over the next couple of innings, but the score sat at 9-7 going into the bottom of the ninth.

Batavia sent the pitcher that had closed out the 8th, Justin Wright, to the  mound.  When a pinch hitter was announced as the first batter for the Valley Cats though he immediately called in Chase Reid.  Reid didn’t seem ready, and coupled with the crazy strike zone, he promptly walked the first batter. The catcher, Christopher Wallace stepped to the plate and promptly hit a ball out of left center.  In a blink it was gone, and the game was tied.  Reid walked another batter, then with two out, they intentionally walked the Valley Cats Ben Orloff.  It paid off, because the next hitter flied out to deep center.

The crowd began the night at 2,737, and at this point at least half were still there.  This game was on a Tuesday night, after labor day, when most kids has either started school that day, or were going to start the next.  As a play-off game, it had only been announced two days before, so 3,000 fans was a pretty good crowd.  But as I sat in the stands, I noticed that the fans that were there knew this team.  They weren’t just folks looking for something to do on a Tuesday night. They were there to cheer on their Valley Cats.  They sported hats and t-shirts, and many were making a last trip to the store to buy the championship t-shirts on sale there.  They called out to their batters by first names.  They cheered for their guys, and the were staying until the end.  The Valley Cats mantra reads “making fans for life” and that is what they had done. These were fans that cared about their team, and were sticking with them to the end.

The Muckdogs got baserunners in the 10th and the 11th, but none crossed the plate.  In the bottom of the 11th, with clock striking 11pm, Daniel Adamson came to the plate.  He had come into the game in the 9th, as a pinch runner, and had gone out to play center when the game went on.  With one out, he stepped in, looked out to the pitcher, pulled his bat back, and waited for Chase Reid to throw his pitch.  No sooner than it had, than a moon shot headed out to left center.  It was gone, and Valley Cat players poured out onto the field to gather around home plate.  Adamson threw his batting helmet and jumped onto home plate and into the throng of teammates.  It was a moment that little boys dream of, let alone a guy who was just drafted in the 20th round.

The series continues tonight, in Batavia.