Falcons are still in the NBL playoff zone, but can they stay there? (photo by Paul Holdrick)
National Baseball League, Herts Falcons 10 South London Pirates 11 (box scores)
The Herts Falcons lost two more games at on Sunday extending their losing streak to six. In the first game they battled back from being 9-6 down against the South London Pirates to take a 10-9 lead in the top of the final inning. The Pirates responded with two runs in the bottom of that inning to secure a walk-off win in dramatic fashion. New signing Ian Sales made his debut in this game. He struck out 5 batters in his 4 innings of work allowing 8 earned runs. Undoubtedly he would have liked to have been on the winning side on his debut, but he will not have to wait long to have another go as there are some big games coming up.
National Baseball League, Southampton Mustangs 6 Herts Falcons 2 (box scores)
In the second game of the day the Falcons came up against the Southampton Mustangs who, to the surprise of everyone in British baseball, had only 2 wins in 10 games before the start of the day. Those who were beginning to write them off may have to reassess their predictions. Pitcher Francisco Gonzalez was very effective pitching a complete game in which he allowed only 2 runs and 4 hits against an unusually quite Herts batting line-up. Jose Sosa was the starting pitcher for the Falcons and he once again performed well. The 6 runs conceded by the Falcons all came in the first inning but for the rest of the day Sosa completely shut down the Mustangs putting up zeros in the remaining six innings of the game.
This is the team’s longest losing streak since they lost eight consecutive games in 2011. No one could have predicted this after the team’s impressive start of the season winning 5 of their opening 6 games. “We find ourselves in a difficult period and we have to battle our way out of it. We have a tough BBF Cup quarter-final away game against the Oxford Kings coming up on Sunday and that’s the only thing that we are thinking about at the moment” said Herts Falcons manager, Lee Manning.
Single-A League, Guildford Mavericks 17 Herts Hawks 18 (box scores)
There was some good news for Herts baseball fans as the Herts Hawks scored 5 runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to win 18-17 against the Guildford Mavericks. This means that they are still unbeaten with a record of 7 wins and 0 losses. They are top of their division and in a very strong position to qualify for the Single-A League playoffs.
Single-A League, Bracknell Inferno 31 Herts Raptors 12
Herts Raptors are still searching for their first win of the season after a 32-11 defeat against the Bracknell Inferno.