For anyone wondering if we might see a different brand of baseball in the WPBL now that the league has entered the postseason, Game 1 of the semifinals between the Boston Hunters and San Francisco Firebells Wednesday night in Springfield, Ill., provided a strong indication that we will. In a league in which the average winning team during the regular season scored nearly 11 times and won by more than five runs, the final score of the first playoff game in league history was 6-4, and the game was every bit as tight as that score suggests, if not more so.
A great deal of credit for that goes to the Boston Hunters, who may have dropped their sixth straight game to San Francisco, remaining winless against the Firebells on the season, but who also played the Firebells harder and closer than they have all year, committing just one inconsequential error, taking two separate leads, and putting the tying runs in scoring position in their final turn at-bat in the bottom of the seventh.
Credit also goes to both starting pitchers. Neither San Francisco’s Kelsie Whitmore nor Boston’s Kate Blunt was at her sharpest on Wednesday night, but both battled through five innings, worked out of jams and around wavering control, and not only kept their team in the game, but also kept the game tense and low-scoring.
After both pitchers worked 1-2-3 first innings on a combined 13 pitches, the Hunters drew first blood in the top of the second. With one out, right fielder Molly Paddison drew a four-pitch walk from Whitmore, went to third on an opposite-field double by left fielder Ticara Geldenhuis, and scored on a sacrifice fly by catcher Beth Greenwood.
Blunt, who seemed to lose the ability to throw her curveball for strikes in the second inning, put the first two batters in the bottom of the second on via a walk and hit-by-pitch, but then induced shortstop Joely Leguizamon into a crucial double play and stranded the remaining runner at third by getting left fielder Jua Park to fly out to center.
With one out in the top of the third, the Hunters’ lineup rolled over, resulting in some hard contact off Whitmore, but the Firebells’ fielders stepped up. Center fielder Ela Day-Bédard made a running, over-the-shoulder catch in deep center on a drive by Boston leadoff hitter Lexi Hastings for the second out, and second baseman Amanda Gianelloni made a great sliding catch of a hard, sinking liner from Gabrielle Haas, who was making just her second start of the season at third base, to end the threat.
Seemingly on schedule, the Firebells sent eight batters to the plate and took the lead in the bottom of the third, but when the smoke cleared they were only up 2-1. Blunt got into an early jam, with runners on the corners, one out, and Whitmore due up, but Hunters manager Jemile Weeks, despite the presence of a runner on first and hot-hitting Skylar Kaplan on deck, ordered an intentional walk of the league’s co–home run queen.
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The intentional walk pushed Gianelloni, who had singled, to second base and loaded the bases with one out. Two of those runners did score, the first on a Kaplan single, but Gianelloni came in on a sacrifice fly, which was the second out, and, after re-loading the bases with a walk to catcher Alexia Jorge, Blunt stranded Whitmore at third by getting Leguizamon to ground out. True, Gianelloni might not have scored without the intentional walk pushing her into scoring position, but Weeks did seem to prevent San Francisco from having a big inning.
Having survived that frame, the Hunters struck back immediately. In the top of the fourth, captain Alli Schroder and designated hitter Denver Bryant both singled and advanced on a wild pitch, an apparent cross-up with Whitmore sending a high fastball over the head of Jorge, who appeared to be expecting a curve. That put runners on second and third. Whitmore rallied to strike out Paddison and get Geldenhuis to pop out, but Greenwood shot a sinking liner the opposite way into right center, past Day-Bédard’s attempt at a sliding catch, plating both runners, and hustled in to second for a clutch double to put Boston back up 3-2.
Blunt then set the bottom of the Firebells’ lineup down in order in the bottom of the fourth. Facing the top of the lineup for a third time in the top of the fifth, Whitmore wriggled out of a two-on, none-out jam by catching a foul pop-up from Schroder herself, then getting Bryant to hit into a fielder’s choice and striking out Paddison again on her 87th and final pitch of the night.
Blunt similarly faced the top of her opponents’ order for a third time in the fifth, but she didn’t come out as clean. With one out, Whitmore singled and Kaplan doubled to put runners on second and third. First baseman Andréanne Leblanc tied the game with an RBI groundout that plated Whitmore. Then Jorge came to the plate seemingly hunting a curveball up in the zone from Blunt.
The first curve Jorge saw, she pulled way foul into the stands, spinning out from under her batting helmet in the process. The second, on 2-2, she sent a little straighter but still foul down the left-field line just beyond the bullpen mound, again coming out of her helmet. Finally, on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Blunt arced another curve over the plate, and Jorge crushed it to the wall in left field. Geldenhuis tracked the ball back to the wall, but it was just beyond her reach for an RBI double that plated Kaplan and put San Francisco up 4-3.
Still, Blunt stranded Jorge, and the Hunters again made noise in the top of the next inning, this time against reliever Rosi del Castillo. Geldenhuis led off by working a nine-pitch walk, then stole second. Del Castillo then fell behind Greenwood 3-1 only to rally and strike her out. She then got second baseman Suzuka Yamamoto to ground out, pushing Geldenhuis to third with two outs.
On a 2-2 count, the next hitter, shortstop Raine Padgham, batting ninth for just the second time all season, reached out and poked an outside pitch down the right-field line. Second baseman Gianelloni raced over and appeared to make a diving, rolling catch as she crossed into foul territory, but the ball came loose after she hit the ground. The play was ruled no catch, but the ball was also ruled foul, preventing Geldenhuis from scoring.
The fair/foul call was questionable, as it was unclear where the ball was when it hit Gianelloni’s glove, but none of the replays provided a definitive angle, and Weeks, who was coaching first base and likely had as good a look at it as anyone, refused to harp on the play after the game, even though Padgham popped out on the next pitch, stranding Geldenhuis, who would have been the tying run.
Having escaped that situation, the Firebells padded their lead against lefty reliever Olivia Bricker in the bottom of the sixth. Still, they did not put the game away. Jua Park and del Castillo, the latter in her first at-bat since Aug. 12, opened the inning with a double and a single, respectively. Park scored on a sacrifice fly by Day-Bédard, and, after Gianelloni flew out for the second out, Weeks again intentionally walked Whitmore with first-base occupied. Again, Kaplan followed with an RBI single, but again the damage was limited, and Boston headed to the top of the seventh down 6-3 with the top of the order due up.
Fresh off running the bases, and entering her second inning of work for the first time since Aug. 12, del Castillo opened the inning by skipping her 0-2 pitch to Hastings in the dirt and into Hastings’s right shin, then walked Haas on four pitches to bring Schroder to the plate as the tying run with no one out. Schroder golfed another 0-2 pitch to deep right field, but Kaplan raced back and made a leaping catch for the first out, and Hastings, who anticipated the ball getting over Kaplan’s head, had to quickly retreat to second base. Del Castillo then walked Bryant on four pitches to load the bases, putting the tying run on and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate. That prompted Firebells manager Matt Williams to go to his bullpen and call on a pitcher who might have been his intended starter for Game 2, lefty Liz Gilder.
Despite her starting assignments for the Firebells, Gilder is used to pitching in relief for the Canadian national team and gave the Firebells the platoon advantage against the next batter, lefty Molly Paddison. San Francisco appears to have found a hole in Paddison’s swing, because Gilder went right after her much like Whitmore did, getting her to swing and miss three times for the second out of the inning. There were just five strikeouts in this game, just four of them swinging. Three of those were of Paddison, and all three came with multiple runners on base in a game the Hunters lost by just two runs.
Asked about Paddison after the game, Whitmore told reporters, “until someone proves to you that they can capitalize on a certain pitch, you’re going to continue to be aggressive” with it. For Paddison, that pitch appears to be something hard that starts in and above the waist on the young lefty and runs down and over the plate, be it Gilder’s left-handed cutter or a well-placed fastball or two-seamer from a righty like Whitmore. In her final three at-bats, Paddison swung and missed at a pitch like that seven times.
The Hunters weren’t finished, however. Geldenhuis followed with a groundball that took a big hop on third baseman Ayaka Yamamoto, sailing past her for an RBI single. That put the tying runs in scoring position and the go-ahead run on base for Greenwood, who had driven in three of the Hunters’ four runs to that point. However, Gilder jammed Greenwood with a 1-0 cutter and got her to groundout to nail down the rare (for the WPBL) non-three-inning save and put the Firebells up 1-0 in the best-two-out-of-three semifinal.
The Hunters, now 0-6 against San Francisco on the year, will have to find a way to beat the Firebells on Friday to avoid elimination. Captain Alli Schroder will most likely start that game for Boston. The Firebells will chose from among Gilder, Niki Ekert, and Jill Albayati for their Game 2 starter, manager Matt Williams told reporters after Game 1.
Tonight, the Los Angeles Queens and New York Heights open their best-of-three semifinal at 7 p.m. Eastern. The starting pitchers in that contest are likely to be Ayami Sato for LA and Rakyung Kim for New York.
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Injury Updates:
Firebells righty Jill Albayati (hamstring) still hasn’t appeared in a game since Aug. 21 but was again on the active list Wednesday night and could pitch in Game 2 on Friday. Manager Matt Williams told reporters after the game that the team has “been ramping her up.” Per Williams, Albayati threw to live hitters on Tuesday, “played some toss” and took batting practice on Wednesday, and “feels really good.” The team will see how Albayati feels on Thursday, two days after her throwing session, and will “make a decision on Friday,” said Williams, who mentioned Albayati along with Guilder and Niki Eckert as pitchers who could start Friday’s Game 2 for San Francisco.
Firebells catcher/third baseman Sam Gutierrez, who was hit in the right eye by a bad hop during infield practice last Friday, was inactive on Wednesday but played catch and ping pong to test her depth perception, Williams told reporters. “I know it sounds silly, but the ping pong really helps,” said Williams. “It helps her focus on the ball coming at her without having any risk of injury again. So, we’ll continue to do that and see where she’s at [Thursday] at practice and then on Friday morning when we have to make a decision” about the inactive players.
Notes:
After the game, Hunters catcher Beth Greenwood attributed the ability of both teams to keep their opponent’s lineup in check in Game 1 to the increased familiarity that comes from having played one another so often. Greenwood offered that both she and Firebells catcher Alexia Jorge, as well as their pitchers, have “had the opportunity to … read swings, mix up pitch-calling … game-plan [and] figure out what it takes” to get these hitters out.
Williams, meanwhile, called it “the best defensive game we’ve seen all season from both sides.” The two teams combined for just one error (a dropped foul pop by Greenwood in an at-bat that ended in an out anyway) and just one wild pitch (by Whitmore on an apparent cross-up). Every other routine play was made, and there was exceptional effort on several others, particularly by the Firebells in the third inning, as detailed above.
The WPBL put on a little bit of their homespun brand of razzle dazzle for the start of the postseason Wednesday night. The ESPN broadcast opened with a new hype reel. Women’s Baseball World Cup veteran and WPBL board member Tamara Homes and National Baseball Hall of Famer Lee Smith accompanied a trio of young Baseball for All players to the mound for the first-pitch ceremony, which saw Smith throw the pitch to one of the young girls. That was followed by full team introductions, a live national anthem, and some small, ground-level fireworks beyond the outfield fence. Then, in a bit of theatricality which, at best, didn’t translate to television, WPBL co-founders commissioner Justin Siegal and CEO Keith Stein, together, pressed a big a big shiny red button that was clearly connected to nothing to activate “postseason mode.”
The league has added postseason patches to all of the caps and on the left chest of all of the jerseys. The design is very similar to the slightly larger “Inaugural Season” patches on the left sleeves and, in my opinion, just clutters things up. I’m not a fan of those special patches in any circumstances for any league, but here, where all four teams are in the postseason anyway, it seems especially superfluous.
One inarguably positive change the league has made for the postseason, however, is the addition of a third umpire, so there are now two umpires on the bases, making it more likely that the call on Padgham’s foul ball was correct, though I still have my doubts. Kelly Elliott Dine, who is in charge of umpires for the league, handled home plate herself in this game, while Kate Hart and Janet Thomas McKeen handled the bases. In the postgame press conference, Jemile Weeks implied that it was Dine, who would have had a view down the line from home plate, who made the call on Padgham’s foul ball in the sixth.
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