MCBL 2012 Post-Season Tournament!

Update Thursday, July 26th, 11:00 pm:

You’d expect a close game in the finals of the elimination bracket and that’s exactly what the fans at Joe Cannon Stadium were treated to tonight as the Gaithersburg Giants Blue edged the Gaithersburg Giants Red 6-5.

The Blue’s starting pitcher, Thomas Williams had the Reds baffled for a while.  Thru the first five innings, he held the Reds hitless and allowed only one walk.  The Blue’s defense helped as first baseman Kurtis Voytell made two nice catches of foul ball pop-ups. 

Meanwhile the Blue built up a 4-0 lead with only three hits.  Three walks in the first and two more in the fourth helped them plate two runs in each of those innings.  A nice catch by the Reds first baseman  TJ Brockway in the fourth inning of a foul pop-up helped keep the Blue rally from getting larger.

In the top of the sixth, the Reds Cody Acker ignited a rally when he unexpectedly stole second base with his team down by four runs.  Alex Lipman followed with a double to score Acker.  Billy Plante added a clutch two out, two strike, two run single.   TJ Brockway then added a two run single to tie the score 4 – 4.

The Reds threatened to rally again in the top of the seventh but the Blue’s catcher Lane Farmer threw out Cody Acker in his attempted steal of second base.

The Blue’s Brandon Grove led off the bottom of the seventh with a solo home run over the right field fence to put the Blue back up 5- 4.

However, the pesky Reds came right back in the top of the eighth and scored the tying run on a Blue miscue.  They had men on first and third in the top of the ninth with two out when Matt Kohn sent a line drive deep to left field.  However, the Blue’s Tyler Fairbanks made a great diving catch for the third out to end the rally.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Blue wasted no time.  After a walk to Brandon Grove, Kurtis Voytell laid down an effective sacrifice bunt to move Grove to second base.  Shortstop Ryan McGuigan then lined a game winning single down the right field line to score Grove and give the Blue a 6 – 5 victory.

Therefore, the #2 seed Gaithersburg Giants Blue will face the #1 seed Baltimore Chop for the championship at 6:00 pm on Friday night at Joe Cannon Stadium.  Should the Blue win the 6:00 pm game, it would be the Chop’s first loss and a second championship game would then be played at 8:45 pm.

It should be a great evening of baseball on Friday night.