It’s hard to believe that the Urbana Locomotives who took the home field for the Boys of Summer League Championship Series against Brad Stark’s Portland Microbrewers was the same team that went 104-58 during the regular season. After two games in the LCS, we’re already down 2-0. Adding insult to injury, we’ve lost two key players to injury.
Both games were one-run games but the from our perspective, the Locomotives never were really in either game. We had a 1-0 lead in Game 1 but the Microbrewers erased that in the second and we never had the lead again.
Game 1 summary:
We had Cy Young candidate David Price (23-4, 2.35 ERA) going and when we scored one run in the first inning, I thought, “maybe this is all we need” (don’t laugh, it’s happened before with Price). Nope. Portland barraged Price with six extra base hits including homers by David Ortiz and Freddie Freeman. Urbana managed to try to keep up and Adrian Beltre even tied it 4-4 with a 2-run homer in the fifth inning. However, Freeman’s two-run shot sealed the deal in the sixth inning.
Portland 5 Urbana 4 W- Iwakuma, L- Price
Game 2 summary:
Game 2 was costly in more ways than one. Starter Cole Hamels couldn’t contain Freddie Freeman any better than Price. Freeman homered twice and drove in three runs in the game. I see an early candidate for LCS MVP should Portland win the series.
Portland starter Matt Harrison kept Urbana to four hits in eight innings. Fortunately, one of those hits was a Nick Markakis homerun which helped keep the score close. Markakis didn’t stay in the game long though. In the seventh inning, he slammed into the wall chasing a ball and was taken out. The very next inning, Adrian Beltre collided with Carlos Ruiz on a pop foul. He limped off the field as well.
Portland 4 Urbana 3 W- Harrison, L- Hamels
Portland reliever Glen Perkins saved both games with four strikeouts in two innings in both games.
Into the Lion’s Den
So now we head into enemy territory in a best of seven series already down two games with the next three games of the series in Portland. Making matters worse, we’re out our #3 and #4 hitters. The report from the the trainer tells me that Nick Markakis is out 20 days so if by some miracle we survive the LCS, he’ll most likely be out for the World Series as well. The trainer tells me that Beltre’s injury is minor and he’ll miss just one day. There IS a traveling day before the Portland series so maybe Adrian will be ready by then.
The only thing going for us is that our away record (54-27) is actually better than our home record (50-31) for this regular season. Let’s hope that trend continues.
Go Locos!
