Sea Kittens played a beautiful five innings of softball September 28, outpacing Thunder Buddies 7-2 with a mix of solid defense and pitching and just enough timely hitting. Unfortunately, those five innings came after Thunder Buddies had pushed the Cats into an 8-0 hole, and in this case five was not greater than two. The loss left Sea Kittens at 0-3 in its Madison Sport and Social Club debut heading into a tough matchup with One Hit Wonders (0-2-1), which is also seeking its first win but has played three tight games.
Latzka homered the hard way, Hennessy took a more leisurely route
For the third consecutive week, the Sea Kitten offense went scoreless in the first inning, despite two first-inning walks. The team is now collectively 1-10 in the first inning through three fall season games and hasn’t had a first-inning hit since Alex Latzka led off the fall season with a double.
David ‘Zen Master” Rower returned to the pitching rubber after a monthlong absence and encountered a Thunder Buddies squad ready to spray the ball around the field, peppering the Cats for three runs in the first inning and five more in the second en route to building that 8-0 lead.
Finally, the Cats got a spark in the top of the third, with substitute extraordinaire Kendra “All Day” height leading off the inning with a double. The Puma followed with an inside-the-park home run to get Sea Kittens on the scoreboard. Dan DynamOele- making his fall season debut after spending several weeks on the injured list- bashed a two-out triple that tested his lung capacity, and jogged home on a Zen Master single to bring the Kits within five runs.
Sunshine Curtis takes advantage of the deep layer of kitty litter surrounding home plate at Bowman
After holding serve through the bottom of the third- the first time in three long weeks that Sea Kittens held an opponent scoreless for an inning- the Cats got back to work in the fourth, loading the bases with nobody out for Haight. The spray-hitting outfielder smashed a line drive to center field, where it was picked off by a well-positioned fielder, and Sunshine Curtis was doubled off second in a no-win baserunning situation. One long flyout later, the run-scoring chance vanished even more suddenly that it had appeared. The Cats returned the favor in the bottom of the inning, staunching a Thunder Bud rally that had runners on second and third with nobody out, but could not shake the feeling of a golden opportunity missed.
Down but still not out, Sea Kittens cut into the 8-3 Thunder Buddy lead in the fifth inning, with Joe Hennessy opening the frame with a towering home run to left-center field. A single from Jami “Roadrunner” Hauer and long double by Rowe set the table for Catfishh Sims, who delivered a big two-out single to bring Sea Kittens within 8-6.
Thunder Buddies got one run back in the bottom of the fifth, and the Cats answered with two-out hits from Latzka and Hennessy in the sixth to pull within 9-7, but again Thunder Buds matched the Sea Kitten tally in their turn at bat.
Down 10-7 entering the seventh, Oele led off the inning with a walk, but two flyouts followed. Another hit from Sims brought the tying run to the plate, but the Thunder Buddy shortstop snagged a sharp grounder from Curtis to force Sims at second and end the game.
Results
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunder Buds | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | x | 10 |
| Sea Kittens | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
Thunder Buds
| AB | R | H | RBI | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SF | IP | RA | WK | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Sea Kittens
| Player | AB | R | H | RBI | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SF | IP | RA | WK | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex The Puma Latzka | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Joe Hennessy | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jami “Roadrunner” Hauer | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dan DynamOele | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Zen Master Rowe | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 0 | 1 |
| Mama Cat O’Brien | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Catfishh Sims | 4 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sunshine Curtis | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aaron “Aa-Lo” Lomax | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Kendra All Day Haight | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 35 | 7 | 15 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 0 | 1 |
Salmon Snacks
- Kendra & Aaron for subbing
- Dan as a big welcome back- and for puffing his way to a triple!
- Katherine for delighting us with a beautifully placed swinging bunt
- Dave as a big welcome back- he’d missed 5 straight games, thanks to (other people’s) Covid encounters!
- Erin for another solid game at 1B
- Bradd for another 3-hit game
- Joe & Alex for the homers
Sea Kittens Great Fillet of the Game
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Game Notes
- The Cats had not lost 5 consecutive games since The Schneid, which ended in July 2014
- Joe, Erin, Kyle, Katherine, Dave, and Dan (last 5 games of the accursed streak- the first 5 games of his SK career) are the Sea Kittens who experienced that trauma
- The 5 consecutive losses tie for second-longest losing streak in team history
- The Cats have gone three straight games without scoring a first-inning run; that’s the longest opening-inning goose egg streak since hanging a first-inning bagel in 4 straight games in May-June 2015, and ties the second-longest such streak in team history.
- Sea Kittens are 18-32 when they don’t score in the first inning.
- Sea Kittens ended their opponents’ streak of scoring runs in 16 consecutive innings!
- Cats hitters notched 2 or more doubles, triples, and homers in the same game for the 10th time in team history, and the first time since September 12, 2018 (the second of back-to-back games in which the team hit for two collective cycles). The most recent game however, was the first time the team accomplished the feat and lost- and the first time the Cats scored fewer than 14 runs in such a game!
- Joe has been on base 6 times this fall, and only scored once (on his own home run), and Katherine has been on base 5 times and has yet to score.