Sometimes it’s just not your night. Saturday night wasn’t London Studer’s night, and, in turn, it wasn’t the New York Heights’, either.
Studer’s night started out well. As the Heights’ starting left fielder Saturday night, Studer singled in her first two at-bats, scored following the first of those hits, and, in the fourth inning, drove in a game-tying run with a sacrifice fly in her third trip to the plate.
Through the first five innings, this fourth meeting between the Heights and the LA Queens was a tight, seesaw affair. The Queens scored two in the bottom of the first on a two-out, two-run double by third baseman Caitlin Eynon. The Heights answered right back with a three-run top of the second capped by second baseman Madison Willan’s two-run double. The Queens then got all of those runs back in the bottom of the inning when, with two outs, Heights starter Emi Saiki plunked designated hitter Samaria Benítez, shortstop Ayuri Shimano singled, and right fielder Ashton Lansdell connected for her fourth home run of the season.
The Heights got one of those runs back in the top of the third, plating a leadoff single by first baseman Claire O’Sullivan, then added two more in the fourth to take a 6-5 lead. What no one realized then was that the tide had already started to turn in the Queens’ favor.
That top of the fourth started when Heights center fielder Claire Eccles doubled and right fielder Natsuki Yonetani singled to put runners on the corners. Clinging to a 5-4 lead, LA manager Eric Young pulled his starting pitcher, 19-year-old Thaima Maximiliana, brought Shimano in from shortstop to pitch, and ordered an intentional walk to Heights catcher Denae Benites. Young thus charged Shimano (who Young had told reporters would be his starting pitcher for this game) with getting out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam.
Shimano succeeded in retiring the next three batters in order, but, in the process, the Heights pushed across the tying and go-ahead runs on a pair of sacrifice flies (with a little help from a fielding error by catcher Maggie Foxx, who failed to glove a throw that would have turned the first run into the second out and thus made the second sacrifice fly the third out).
What wasn’t clear in that moment was that Benites, who was stranded at third in that inning, would be New York’s last baserunner of the game. Shimano continued for two more innings, retiring nine batters in a row, then handed the ball to Queens closer Meggie Meidlinger, who worked a perfect seventh inning.
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Meanwhile, the Queens tied the game up in the bottom of the fifth against Saiki. That happened after third baseman Alyssa Zettlemoyer, inserted into the game in that half inning, failed to catch a pop-up on the infield grass that would have been the third out. That brought up center fielder Mo’ne Davis, who, with runners on the corners, two outs, and an 0-2 count, reached down to flip a curve ball from Saiki into right field and drive in the tying run from third.
Then came the bottom of the sixth. Brought in from left field to relieve Saiki, Studer opened the inning with six straight balls, ultimately walking the first two batters she faced, Shimano and Lansdell. Left fielder Jamie Mackay followed with a first-pitch single to center that broke the tie. The Heights managed to throw out Lansdell trying to get to third on that play (8-3-2-5 for those scoring at home, which I always am), but that would be the only out Studer would get on the night.
Two pitches later, Studer hit first baseman Sarah Edwards on the foot to put runners on first and second again, prompting a mound visit from manager Rocky Henley. Whatever Henley said didn’t help, because Studer then walked the next two batters on nine pitches to drive in another run. By then, Henley had finally seen enough.
Studer faced six batters on the night. They all reached base, five of them via a form of free pass (four walks, one hit-by-pitch). Studer threw 23 pitches. An incredible 18 of them were balls. She wasn’t missing Benites’s target by inches; she was repeatedly missing it by a foot or more. Sometimes it’s just not your night. Then again, Studer has now walked 14 batters in just eight innings on the season and leads the league in wild pitches.
With her team down by two with the bases loaded and just one out, Henley called on relief ace Jaida Lee. The question you might be asking — “Why not just start the sixth inning with Lee, who had the previous day off and is accustomed to working multiple innings?” — was one Henley didn’t need to be asked after the game. She anticipated it, saying in her initial remarks that she was trying to minimize Lee’s workload because the 20-year-old righty was “fighting something, maybe a small little illness.”
Henley successfully reduced Lee’s workload, but not the way she wanted to. Instead of avoiding using Lee in the sixth, she avoided using Lee in the seventh by losing the game as the visiting team.
Lee threw just 10 pitches in the game, but she didn’t get out clean, and she didn’t strike out a batter (though she did set a new league high by hitting 81 miles per hour on the ESPN radar gun). After Lee got Maggie Foxx to pop out on an 0-2 pitch, Davis, again hunting a curveball, delivered another big two-out hit, doubling into left center to drive in two more runs, setting the final score at 10-6.
Altogether, the New York bullpen pitched one inning and allowed four runs and seven baserunners. The LA bullpen pitched four innings and retired 12 in a row. Meanwhile, eight of the 10 runs the Queens scored in this game came with two outs. Sometimes it really just isn’t your night.
The Queens now have four days off before these two teams conclude their head-to-head season series next Thursday. The Heights, meanwhile, have to get right back out there tonight and take on the first-place Firebells, who are hungry for revenge after losing a rain-shortened game to New York the last time they met. Righty Rakyung Kim will make her first appearance against San Francisco this season as tonight’s starter for the Heights.
