Greenville Grabs a Fist Full of Defeat

The scoreboard will read The Harvest 12...Greenville Oaks 11, but the score will not tell you anything about what transpired on the evening of June 14th. Greenville's first loss of the season will be remembered by fans for years to come, and unfortunately the fallout from the game will most likely be tremendous.

The game started out looking much like last weeks defensive gem as Greenville held The Harvest to a three up, three down first inning. But this was no ordinary Harvest. This was a bountiful harvest with many baseball pants. In fact, if you were keeping score at home on the number of pairs of baseball pants per team, the score would read...

The Harvest = 10....Greenville Oaks = 0

It appeared during the pregame stretch that The Harvest should have won without much effort, but the Greenville defense showed up once again. Runs were hard to come by for both teams in the early going. In the second inning, The Harvest did add a run to go up 1 - 0. In the third inning, they added two more to make the score 3 - 0, but Greenville stormed back with 2 runs in the bottom half of the third to make it a respectable 3 - 2. The fourth inning went cold for both teams as their were no runs scored by either team.

The fireworks started in the fifth. The Harvest made a run at pulling away as they added a run in the top of the fifth to make it 4 to 2, but with two outs in the bottom of the inning, Brian Edwards got the party started with a single. David Strickland followed with a two out single to put runners on first and second with free agent pickup of the year Curtis Damour coming to the plate. Damour promptly hit the first pitch he saw into the right field bleachers for the team's first legit homerun in two seasons. That made the score 5 to 4 in favor of Greenville Oaks, and once again the team had life.

It was short lived, however, as The Harvest added 4 runs in the top of the sixth with 3 of the runs being unearned in a defensive meltdown that the fans of this summer season were not used to. That made the score 8 to 5, and Greenville could only muster one run to answer as Shane Collins, making his season debut, knocked in Shane Spencer, who was also making his season debut.

The defense for Greenville really became rattled in the seventh inning, as they gave up 4 more runs in the top half to make the score 12 to 6. Hope seemed all but lost for the Greenville Oaks squad, but new free agent Matt Wacaster had something to say about that. Leading off the bottom of the seventh, the tall, left handed rookie ripped a single past the first baseman to give Greenville a leadoff single. Brokaw followed up with a single into left to put runners on first and second with nobody out. Blake Wattenburger followed with a single of his own to give Greenville bases loaded with no outs. After Edwards popped out for the first out of the inning, Dave Strickland ripped a single into left which scored two runs to make the score 12 - 8. Damour came up and ripped a double into left which plated Wattenburger, and moved Strickland to third. This made the score 12 to 9 with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out. This brought Shivers to the plate, and he knocked a single which scored a run and moved Strickland to Third. Dustin Swart came to the plate, and he also got a hit whiched knocked in Strickland and made the score 12 to 11 with runners on 1st and 2nd with one out.

At this moment the game changed. In a decision that will haunt the team forever, Coach Brokaw decided to make a coaching change at the 3rd base coach position. Mabry had been holding that spot, but his turn in the order was coming up so Coach Brokaw decided to take the coaching duties at third and send Mike to the on deck circle. Spencer came to the plate and he hit a solid grounder to the middle of the infield. The Harvest was able to get the force out at second, and Shivers advanced to third. Shivers, however, believed that force out to be the third out of the inning so he made his way around third and was on his way to the parking lot. In an inexplicable act of rules ignorance, the acting coach, Bryan Brokaw grabbed a fist full of Shivers' jersey and pulled him back towards third base before they could make the throw to get him out. Shivers made it back to the back in plenty of time, but he was called out on coach's interference as everyone and their dog knows that the base coaches cannot come into contact with their players at anytime or else the runner will be called out. This gave The Harvest a game winning double play to end the game on a Coach's interference call.

The Result: The Harvest 12...Greenville Oaks 11.

Or one could look at it as....

The Harvest- 2 - 0 on the season

Greenville Oaks 1 - 0 on the season

Coach Brokaw 0 - 1 on the season

The fallout from this game will probably linger through the rest of this week. Stay tuned for updates, as many rumors are swirling about some possible shake ups in the upper management of the franchise.

As of now though, The same Greenville team has a game next Monday night at 9:30 against their nemisis Chase Oaks. Get your popcorn ready.

Other notes...

Clay Platt went 2 for 3 with 2 RBIs and an outfield assist on his rehab assignment in Austin. The team expects him back for next weeks game.