Sox can’t keep the Cardinals’ flight

On another beautiful day for baseball, the Brantford Red Sox hosted the Hamilton Cardinals in IBL action at Arnold Anderson Stadium on Sunday. Yes it was hot, but of course it was hot. If you noticed the calendar you’d see it’s mid-July… meaning it’s gonna be hot since they don’t play in a dome.
Speaking of hot, the Cardinals come into this game hot, having won four straight games. Brantford is going the other way having dropped three straight. BUT their last win came against… the Hamilton Cardinals. So would Hamilton avenge last game or would the Red Sox continue to be a thorn in the side of the Cardinals?
Coming off a strong four-plus innings yielding just one run against Chatham-Kent, making his fifth start of the season for the Red Sox was Aidan Armitage. The Waterloo native was opposed by Carwin Salcedo for Hamilton. This would be Salcedo’s first start of the season.
The first at-bats had Hamilton on the sticks early, making solid contact. Three of their first four hitters got hits. After that the contact was strong enough for two flyballs to be converted into sacrifice flies and RBIs. That meant the Sox were stuck two early.
Hamilton scored early and regularly. They scored atleast one run in their first five innings.
In the fifth, the Red Sox finally got on the board! Brantford’s Lucas Bateman was in scoring position and that’s a great time for Rene Tachioka to be stepping up to the plate! Why? Tachioka has a league-leading .459 batting average! And since Hamilton had already gotten two outs, Brantford needed something now. And Tachioka smacked the ball to the outfield and cashed Bateman!
Then Cassidy Watt stepped up and since Tachioka had stolen second and third bases, Watt’s spite single to leftfield meant it was an RBI single! That chased the starting pitcher Salcedo among a nice two-out rally to bring the score close. New pitcher to face Brantford’s Christian Ortega. Ortega, hitting .336 on the year is another timely batter to have at the plate, since his 27 RBIs are impressive and ranks him second in the entire league!
Ortega didn’t get all of it but he took the reliever’s first pitch and his hit fell in no man’s land in the shallow outfield and was enough to score Ethan Paulos. This made the game 6-3.
Brantford added a run in the seventh and things looked like they were possible as the hot sun was now being covered by grey clouds that looked ominous.
What was more ominous for Brantford is giving up four runs in the top of the eighth inning. This all but cemented the game for the Cardinals, sending most fans to their cars in order to miss the rain that was surely coming at any minute.
Despite Brantford scoring two in their own half of the inning, the Red Sox could not keep flight with the Cardinals today. The highest I can think of a sock is at an airport… and cardinals can fly much higher than that. Hamilton wins, 10-6.
Or perhaps the Red Sox can fly as high as the Cardinals, but just not when they start behind 6-0. If not for that start, where the Sox gave up a run in every inning until the sixth, Brantford technically would’ve actually won the game 6-4. The good news for Brantford? They scored some runs today (six wins most games) and all hitters but two recorded a hit. Tachioka had three to uphold his league-high batting average while Watt had an impressive four RBIs.
Best thing I heard all day long from the stands is when someone in the crowd yelled “Go Cardinals!”, a local fan said “And the Bulldogs too, right? Oh wait, you don’t have them anymore.”
So if not for today’s baseball game, Brantford as a whole city got the very last laugh over Hamilton. Well sort of, because the Cardinals took care of the Red Sox in this one.
The Red Sox will look to rebound when they face Barrie at home on Friday night! Barrie last edged Brantford 6-5 on Saturday.