When there have only been 34 games played in the entire history of a league, it’s not hard to recognize the best one when you see it. Anyone who witnessed the New York Heights’ 9-7 win over the Los Angeles Queens in Game 2 of their best-of-three semifinal series Saturday night in Springfield, Ill., saw the most thrilling game the WPBL has had to offer thus far.
The New York Heights consistently play the WPBL’s most exciting games. The Queens’ last-at-bat comeback on Opening Day, Andréanne Leblanc’s walk-off grand slam in late August, the league’s only two extra-inning games, and five of the eight games decided by two or fewer runs thus far, including Saturday night’s, have all been Heights games. That’s partially the result of New York having an explosive offense and an implosive pitching staff. What raised Saturday night’s game above all the others was the stakes.
With all four WPBL teams making the playoffs, a team has faced elimination just twice in the history of the league. On Friday night, the Boston Hunters succumbed in a 9-6 loss to the San Francisco Firebells in which they trailed from the second inning on. On Saturday night, the Heights, trailing 0-1 in their semifinal series against the Queens, refused to follow suit.
Things started relatively slowly. The Heights got a run in the top of the first against Queens starter Jamie Mackay, who was a late replacement for intended starter Ayuri Shimano. After a pair of singles and a double play, Heights designated hitter Claire O’Sullivan pulled a two-out double down the left-field line to score right fielder Natsuki Yonetani, who led off the game with a single.
The Queens answered back in the bottom of the second against Heights starter Rakyung Kim when second baseman Samaria Benítez delivered a bases-loaded single to tie the game. But Kim got right fielder Amira Hondras to hit into a 6-4-3 double play to escape further damage.
With the score tied at 1-1 and the top of the Heights’ order due up for the second time in the top of the third, Queens manager Eric Young moved Mackay, who had trouble hitting her spots in her two innings on the mound, behind the plate and brought in ace Ayami Sato to pitch.
Young avoided Sato in Game 1 because the Heights had faced her three times before and hit well against her in two of those outings. That decision was validated by Michelle Roche’s performance on the mound in Game 1, and even more so when Sato struggled in Game 2.
Again, Yonetani led off with a single. In the first inning, Heights catcher Denae Benites followed with a single and was erased on a double play. This time, Benites eliminated that risk by hitting a towering opposite-field home run to put New York up 3-1.
The Queens got one of those runs back in the bottom of the third. With two outs and no one on, shortstop Caitlin Eynon singled, first baseman Sarah Edwards walked, and left fielder Isabella Villarreal singled Eynon home. However, the move to keep Mackay in the game as the catcher put Sato, who had not come to the plate all season, in the seventh spot in the batting order in place of starting catcher Maggie Foxx. Sato’s at-bat put an end to the Queens’ third-inning rally via a groundout to second.
Pinch-hitting for Sato in the bottom of the third might have benefited the Queens in more ways than one, as the Heights continued their success against Sato in the top of the fourth. Starting with a one-out double by center fielder and seventh-place hitter Claire Eccles, six straight Heights reached base in that inning to push across four runs, with a balk by Sato and an error in left field by Villarreal plating two of them.
Up 7-2, Heights manager Rocky Henley, who stuck with her starting pitcher too long and failed to get the ball to her better relievers in Game 1, went to O’Sullivan to replace Kim on the mound. The big Aussie worked a 1-2-3 fourth inning but ran into trouble with two outs and a runner on third in the fifth.
Queens captain Ashton Lansdell got to third base in the bottom of the fifth via a hit-by-pitch, a stolen base, and a groundout. O’Sullivan got Eynon to foul out to Benites to keep Lansdell at third with two outs, but she fell behind each of the next two hitters, Edwards and Villarreal, both of whom singled on 3-1 counts. Edwards managed to drive in Lansdell.
This time, Young did pinch-hit for Sato, and that hitter, Ayuri Shimano, delivered a single to right field just past the diving reach of vertically challenged Heights second baseman Madison Willan. Yonetani then booted the ball in right field, allowing both Edwards and Villarreal to score, but Yonetani and Willan got their revenge with a relay that cut down Shimano attempting to go to third on the play, ending the inning. Nonetheless, the Queens had cut the Heights’ lead to 7-5.
Moving from right field to the mound, Amira Hondras worked a scoreless top of the sixth. She walked Benites with two outs in that inning, but when Benites took off for second base on the 1-2 pitch to left fielder London Studer, Mackay became the first catcher this season to catch Benites stealing, ending the inning.
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Facing the Queens’ lineup for a second time in the bottom of the sixth, O’Sullivan’s struggles continued. After center fielder Mo’ne Davis led off with a single, a pitch got away from O’Sullivan and hit Benítez in the back of the helmet to put the tying run on base. Hondras’ subsequent bunt attempt was a failure, with O’Sullivan pouncing on the ball and easily cutting down the speedy Davis at third base. However, Lansdell later singled Benítez home to make it 7-6 and push the tying run to second.
Next up was the powerful Mackay, and O’Sullivan’s first three pitches were enough to bring manager Rocky Henley out of the dugout. On the first pitch, Mackay crushed a foul home run down the left field line. The next was way outside, and the third, diving toward the dirt, bounced off Benites’s glove to move the runners to second and third, putting the tying run 90 feet away and the go-ahead run in scoring position.
With a 2-1 count in Mackay’s at-bat, Henley made a pitching change, bringing Eccles in from center field and sending O’Sullivan to first base, where she replaced starter Kylee Lahners.
Eccles’ last pitching appearance, which also came against the Queens, had been one of the most dominant by any pitcher this season. She threw three hitless innings and struck out six batters. More than a week had passed since that outing; however, that performance had represented a big step forward for the slight lefty knuckleballer. There was no guarantee that Eccles would be able to recapture that form.
Indeed, already down 2-1 in the count, Eccles walked Mackay to load the bases, then hit Eynon in the foot with an 0-2 pitch to walk in the tying run. She settled down from there, getting Edwards to foul out to third baseman Val Perez for the second out, freezing the runners, and getting Villarreal to hit a weak comebacker to keep the score tied heading into the seventh inning.
The Queens may have merely tied the game in that inning, but that tie put them in an excellent position to win. Not only were they the home team in this game, giving them the ability to walk it off, but they had arguably the best pitcher in the WPBL fired up and ready to preserve the tie in the top of the seventh: closer Meggie Meidlinger. All they needed was three outs and one run, and they’d be in the championship series.
During the regular season, Meidlinger posted a 2.35 ERA and 0.98 WHIP in a league in which the average ERA was 7.88 and the average WHIP was 2.16. In a league-leading nine appearances, she had allowed just five runs, four earned. One of those runs was a Kelsie Whitmore home run. The other four came in a single outing, her lone loss, on Aug. 22.
In that game, Meidlinger coughed up a two-run lead in the seventh inning, then two more runs in the eighth as the Queens lost 8-7. Their opponent in that game? The New York Heights.
The Heights scored two more runs against Meidlinger in Game 1 of this series. It didn’t seem all that significant at the time. Meidlinger, a pitcher-only, had just singled and run the bases for the first time all season in the previous half inning, and the two runs she gave up meant the Queens won the game 10-3 instead of 10-1. This time was different.
First up in the top of the seventh was left fielder London Studer, who had been at the plate when Denae Benites was caught stealing in the sixth. Studer battled Meidlinger, fouling off several pitches, then hit a grounder that forced Eynon to make a backhanded play and a long throw from shortstop that made it to first in time for the out.
Next up was Claire O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan had driven in the first run of the game and had made a nice play on Hondras’ bunt in the sixth, but she had also let the Queens back into the game during her time on the mound.
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Back on Aug. 22, O’Sullivan had scored the tying run against Meidlinger and hit an RBI single that proved to be the game-winner. She noted the Height’s previous familiarity against Meidlinger came in handy.
“We’ve seen her a couple of times now. … Personally, I’ve probably had about six at-bats against her in my lifetime,” O’Sullivan told reporters. “So knowing that she has that really downward trajectory and collecting all that information so that you can use it for your next at-bat.”
This time, O’Sullivan got ahead of Meidlinger 2-0, swung through a pitch above the zone, then took an outside strike to even the count at 2-2. Meidlinger’s next pitch was up and in, and O’Sullivan turned on it, sending it down the left field line and off the permanent fence behind the WPBL’s temporary one for a go-ahead home run.
Improbably, Keira Izumi — who, after hitting a home run against the Firebells on Aug. 6 stated that she rarely hits home runs — followed with a solo shot of her own to the gap in left-center in her lone plate appearance of the game.
Both O’Sullivan and Izumi, the latter of whom had singled off Meidlinger in Game 1, noted that the Queens closer attacks the strike zone, something they were prepared for when facing her.
“I’ve seen Meggie a bunch of times,” Izumi told reporters. “I know that she’s a great pitcher, so she’s going to throw me a strike. She’s gonna throw me something to hit. So, I was just going out ready to hit. And then, once Claire went yard, I was like, ‘The only thing better than one home run is two.'”
Those back-to-back home runs gave the Queens a 9-7 lead, and though she walked pinch-hitter Michelle Roche on four pitches to start the bottom of the seventh, Eccles held the line. After getting Davis to foul out to O’Sullivan, who made a difficult play behind first base, Eccles got Benítez to hit into a game-ending, around-the-horn double play.
With that, the Heights staved off elimination. All they had to do was strand the bases loaded, then beat the best pitcher in the game with their season on the line.
O’Sullivan’s home run is easily one of, if not the biggest, hits in WPBL history. That’s because the Heights are now the only team in league history to face elimination and escape it, and O’Sullivan’s home run is what saved them. At least for now.
The Heights will face elimination again on Monday night in Game 3, which will be the first double-elimination game in WPBL history. It’s very possible that something in that game, or the subsequent championship series between the winner of that game and the San Francisco Firebells, will best Saturday night’s game and O’Sullivan and Izumi’s back-to-back, season-saving home runs.
The WPBL has been making history all season. It has been making baseball history, and women’s sports history, and women’s baseball history, but it has also been making WPBL history. In the years to come, the legacy of this league will be built not only on the facts of its existence but on moments like the climax to Saturday night’s game, those unscripted, unpredictable moments.
On Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern in Springfield, Ill., the Heights will play the Queens once more to determine which team advances to the championship series.
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Injury Updates:
Queens manager Eric Young told reporters after the game that he had intended to start Ayuri Shimano on the mound in this game, but she was unable to go, prompting the shift to Jamie Mackay.
Young did not specify the nature of Shimano’s injury, though given her pinch-hitting appearance and subsequent race around the bases, it seems likely that it is something that only affects her throwing. That would explain why Shimano didn’t start at shortstop or stay in the game after her pinch-hitting appearance.
Young didn’t address Shimano’s potential availability for Game 3 directly, but he did mention that he needs to “check that the arm seems healthy” and emphasized that, in a “must-win situation … everybody’s available.”
Heights manager Rocky Henley told reporters that Jaida Lee (right ankle) did some throwing on Saturday and “had her shoe on.” Indeed, Lee was seen in the dugout without her walking boot but, at times, also without her right shoe on, and she was walking with a pronounced limp when she came onto the field for the team’s home run celebrations.
As a guest on the ESPN broadcast of Friday’s game, Lee said that her injury prevents her from getting sufficient load and drive in her pitching delivery. Henley indicated that Lee has yet to be cleared to return to action, so it seems unlikely that Lee will be available for Monday’s game.
Notes:
Keira Izumi has been commuting to and from the University of Southern California, where she attends classes Monday through Wednesday, since school resumed at the end of August. She will keep that schedule this week and won’t be available for the Heights in Game 3 (the mechanical engineering major told reporters that she has a lab on Monday that she can’t miss and can’t move).
Izumi told reporters after Saturday night’s game that school helps her keep baseball in perspective, saying, “There’s definitely a lot of high stakes today, but for me, it’s not mechanical engineering. … It’s just a fun game.”
With regard to pitcher availability on Monday, here are the pitch counts for the pitchers used thus far in this series, working backwards from the relievers (and omitting Izumi):
Heights:
- Claire Eccles, Saturday: 28
- Claire O’Sullivan, Saturday: 39
- Rakyung Kim, Saturday: 46
- London Studer, Thursday: 50
- Emi Saiki, Thursday: 85
Queens:
- Meggie Meidlinger, Thursday: 27; Saturday: 23
- Amira Hondras, Saturday: 15
- Ayami Sato, Saturday: 45
- Jamie Mackay, Saturday: 41
- Isabella Villarreal, Thursday: 17
- Michelle Roche, Thursday: 65
ESPN’s Game 2 broadcast noted that there has been some tension between the Heights and Queens in this series, which is unusual for this league, in which the majority of the players are friends. That may be a result of the increased stakes now that postseason play is underway. Per ESPN, the Queens, and catcher Jamie Mackay in particular, have taken exception to some of the Heights’ cheering and (literal) barking from the dugout.
“We’re great friends off the field and everything, but … for me, personally, once we get in between the lines, I’m not cracking jokes with you,” Queens captain Ashton Lansdell told reporters. “I’m not really talking much if you’re on the other team. I’m here to take care of business and make sure my team wins. … I’m not playing the game of we’re friends on the field or whatever, because we’re not. And that’s the mindset that I personally need to have to go out there to do my best. Some people still love to joke or whatever, but not me. So, definitely gonna have that mindset on Monday for sure.”
