WERRIBEE Giants stumbled over their own feet in a 6-4 loss to Mulgrave in the Baseball Victoria summer league division 2 at President’s Park on Sunday.
It was the Giants’ first loss of the short season and coach Earl Byrne said errors in the field at critical times proved costly.
“We made a couple of errors – not a heap of them – but if we hadn’t have made those errors I reckon we would’ve won the game,” he told the Weekly.
The Giants were alive right until the last inning.
Trailing by two runs entering the ninth, they managed to get runners on first and second with just one out.
Chris Webb got on with a walk and Darryl George took advantage of an error by the visitors’ shortstop.
It was all set for a grandstand finish when catcher Oliver Box struck out, leaving John Curnow as the Giants’ last hope.
He made great connection with a pitch, slamming the ball between the shortstop and third base. Ordinarily that would have got Webb, the runner on second base, home.
But unfortunately for Webb, the ball was on him too fast, and it clipped his feet on his way to third. The umpire ruled interference and the game was over.
“He was just unlucky,” Byrne said.
“He tried to avoid it and unfortunately avoided it the wrong way.”
The Giants’ batters faced one of the hottest pitching talents in the division.
Canadian import Mike McGillivray threw with heat and location.
“I was quite happy with the way the boys swung the bat against him,” Byrne said. “He was as good as any bloke we faced last year in divvy one.”
Daniel Wilkie was the shining light in the batters’ box. He was calm in the pressure situations with three RBIs on two hits.
“They were two very important hits that kept us in the game,” Byrne said.
Webb worked the full nine innings on the hill for the Giants.
Every time Byrne was about to take the left- armer out of the game, he would fire back with a reason for his coach not to go to the bullpen.
“I was almost ready to pull him out of the game after the sixth inning,” Byrne said.
“I put him back out there for the seventh and I thought we’ll take him batter by batter.
“He got out of the inning with less than 10 pitches and then he went back out in the eighth and same thing, so I put him back out there for the ninth.
“He got stronger the longer the game went on.
“Every time he was coming back to the dugout, I was saying, ‘You’ve just bought yourself another inning’.
“Three of those runs were through no fault of his.”
The Giants will play their third home match in four starts when they entertain Moorabbin at President’s Park on Sunday from 3.30pm.
SUMMER LEAGUE
Firsts: Werribee 4 Mulgrave 6
Seconds: Werribee 7 Mulgrave 7
Thirds: Werribee 7 Mulgrave 12
Fourths: Werribee 0 Mulgrave 0
