It was a .500 week last week with TTBC clubs going 4 wins and 4 losses. The bright spot was there was some great pitching with three shutouts pitched by 11 TTBC pitchers in the week. TTBC sits in first place ties in both the Majors and the Minors. Here is how we did around Hong Kong…..
Last Sunday saw the Hong Kong Little League (HKLL) Minors division’s opening day at Ho Man Tin West. Our Tai Tam teams were properly prepared, resulting in some highly entertaining baseball to start the season.
The Typhoons led off proceedings for TTBC in the first game of the day and their high-powered offence was no match for the Kaakiro Lions. The final score was 19 – 4 with Ken Ando leading the charge with a double in the first inning. Connor Ackerman blasted a triple and Taylor Gardner went 2-for-2 with a walk. Starting pitcher, Gardner picked up the win allowing three runs on two hits. Blair Man and Weiss Jr came in as relief and the three pitchers combined for 10 strikeouts. Strikes as a percentage of pitches was 51% for Gardner, 57% for Man and 61% for Weiss Jr.
The second match-up saw the Pirates dispatch the Shatin Martins in a convincing 10 – 0 victory. Isshin Satake was on the mound and earned the W with Blake Yang and Ryan Lem helping in the shutout. The trio allowed three hits, walking two whilst striking out seven. Strike percentage: Satake 58%, Yang 79% and Lem 71%. The Pirates’ defence was solid. On the bats, Takeo Blakely and Donovan Ma both went 2-for-2 and each scored twice. Satake also contributed offensively with a double down the 3rd base line.
The afternoon games featured our Sharks and Eagles taking-on traditional powerhouses: Angels (Korean Baseball Club) and Yakult Swallows (Japanese Baseball Club), respectively.
In a pitchers duo, the Eagles narrowly lost to the highly-disciplined Swallows, 0 to 4 in a hard-fought battle. Charlie Park started the game allowing one run on no hits while walking three. Oliver Barnes came out of the bullpen and together with Park, struck out seven.
The Sharks left it late unfortunately and came up short in a 5 – 12 loss to the Angels. Sharks’ bats were slow to start but came alive in the fourth inning when they scored five runs. Luke Murphy and Kingsley Wang led the rally hitting doubles. Freeman got the nod on the hill and threw two innings allowing three runs on three hits. Ethan Lee and Ian Horng came in as relief and the three pitchers combined for six strikeouts.
Over in To Shek the Eagles blew out the Astros in a one sided affair. Max Barney, Kai Harris and Blayden Schwartz combined on a four hitter. Michael Lee kept his dominance of the Astros (batting 1000 over two years) by going 4 for 4 and just missing hitting for the cycle. Every player hit or got on in the game with the most memorable being a Daniel “the goose” Gusak’s blistering base clearing single in the 4th that put the icing on a huge blowout.
In the later game the Typhoons levelled their little league record with the two Jakes – Thompson and Flach combing with Noah Lambert on shutout. Noah kept his hot bat going with three hits in a very one sided 19-0 win.
And finally – up on the Rock – Lion Rock – where the Juniors were in action in a very tight Juniors pennant race. To quote the always eloquent Coach Shroth “The young and developing Typhoons juniors team had a great outing on Sunday with loads of hits and some decent pitching from Evan Wu, Nicky Hui, Shaye Schroth and James Looram. Some infield errors and mental lapses along the way allowed the Lions to catch up for an 8-8 tie. In the final inning, with no outs and a man on 2nd, Shaye Schroth settled into a rhythm and struck out the next two batters. However, on the 2nd strikeout there was a “drop 3” strike and the batter scrambled off to first. A slight overthrow to 1st base by our catcher resulted in a game winning walk off as the man from 2nd scored the winning run for the Lions. Never in the annals of TTBC baseball lore have we seen a “Walk Off Strike Out”! On to the next game and hopefully a victory against the largely Korean team, the Royals.”
The Eagles had a very strong showing against the very stacked, very deep Japanese Buffaloes. Deep into the 5th inning the Eagles were tied 8-8. We again had consistent pitching from Rohan shah and kaes Carter as well upstart 13 year old Woochan Nam. Later in the game we had two pitchers making their juniors debut in Jacob Lee and Theo Simms. Both had commendable appearances and threw a bunch of strikes. Unfortunately, the Buffaloes are a hitting team and they hit them where we weren’t and we eventually succumbed to late inning runs.
The Eagles made a TON of contact against solid Buffalo pitchers which really bodes well for our future. Bigs hits from Shah, Lee, Nam, and Simms set the pace. So many put the ball in play it really gave us a chance to run the bases and rack up some runs against an unsuspecting Buffalo squad.
Our early leaders for the year are as follows:
Minors Stats
Hits:
Takeo Blakely (Pirates) 2
Donovan Ma (Pirates) 2
Taylor Gardner (Typhoons) 2
RBIs:
Connor Ackerman (Typhoons) 3
Luke Murphy (Sharks) 2
Kingsley Wang (Sharks) 2
Taylor Gardner 2
Ks:
Oliver Barnes (Eagles) 4
Taylor Gardner (Typhoons) 4
6 tied with 3
Majors Stats
Hits
- Barney 12
- Holland 10
- Sabella 10
- Chai 10
- Lee 9
RBI’s
- Holland 14
- Barney 12
- Chai 10
- Schwartz 8
- Lee 8
Strikeouts
- Chai 24
- Holland 20
- Barney 20
- Waag 11
- Burgess 10
Juniors Stats
Hits through 2 games
Shah – 4
Looram – 4
Nam -3
Wu – 3
RBI’s
Hui – 2
Wang – 2
Wu – 2
Strikeouts
Shah – 3
Carter – 3
Please get out and cheer the TTBC teams on as we have a full slate of games this weekend. Until next week.
Coaches Barney and Waag