Playoff picture becomes clearer for Gators
By Dan Roem
Sometimes in baseball, something as mundane as a walk can be the turning point in a game.
In Fauquier's 9-2 win over Haymarket last Thursday, the Senators led 5-2 going into the top of the seventh inning when catcher Daniel Petitti came to the plate for the Gators (18-13).
One man was out and he quickly found himself down 0-2 in the count against Valley Baseball League all-star Ben Hildreth.
Yet Petitti kept his cool and let low ball after low ball go by him. Two even hit the dirt. Eventually, Petitti walked and the next batter, Ian Dike, moved him to second with a single.
Haymarket (13-19) manager Bill Shields then called Dustin Johnson, a freshman right-hander from St. Edward’s University, out of the bullpen.
Gregory DeSantis smacked Johnson’s first offering to third base, where the lead runner was forced out. But the throw from third sailed over first base, allowing Dike to score.
Still with two outs, Fauquier center fielder Justin Jones walked to load the bases, giving Anders Oster a chance to blow the game wide open.
“I just felt really confident,” said the Gators’ shortstop.
Oster capitalized with a blooper to right that scored two runs and turned into a double. Ty Legan immediately drove him in with a 2-1 shot to left-center field that fooled both outfielders and resulted in an RBI triple.
In all, Fauquier strung together five runs with two outs before Shields went back to his bull pen and called on lefty Conner Thompson to close out the inning. “Errors happen and we lost the game,” Shields surmised after the game. “[We have] got to play defense. Sometimes the ball just takes a funny hop.”
The Gators ended up dropping two of their next three games, but still controlled second place in the North Division by one game over Winchester as of Tuesday morning. Haymarket split its next two games, keeping the Senators in fifth place in the north and tied for eighth over-all in the league...See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.