Quakes beat 66ers in wild, crazy, ugly game, 13-9

It’s kind of hard to know where to start with Friday’s epic Quakes  13-9 victory over the 66ers, with all the odd, strange, and ugly plays.

Actually, let’s start with who 66ers broadcaster Mike Saeger chose as his star of the game, Quakes official scorer Chris Watts, because of the number of bizarre, unusual plays and six combined errors.

As for who won, the Quakes scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth to pull out a 13-9 victory. With the score tied 9-9, Clay Fuller singled with one out, went to second on a wild pitch and went to third on Andrew Romine’s infield single. Then, Matt Sweeney hit a grounder to first. Sixers first baseman Eduardo Perez tried to come home but threw wildly, scoring Fuller with the go-ahead run and putting runners on second and third. Julio Perez doubled home two runs to make it 12-9, then he scored when he stole third and catcher Alex Garabedian’s throw ended up in left field.

The Sixers went meekly in the ninth.

Here’s how the see-saw game went: 66ers led 2-0, then Quakes tied it 2-2. Quakes took a 5-2 lead, and the Sixers tied it, 5-5. Quakes took a 6-5 lead in the bottom of the third, which held up until the top of the seventh. That’s when the Sixers scored two to take a 7-6 lead. The Quakes came back to score three and take a 9-7 lead, only to watch the Sixers tie it, 9-9 before the Quakes finally took the lead for good in the bottom of the eighth.

In the game, there were six errors (four Sixers, two Quakes), including one where Quakes second baseman P.J. Phillips literally kicked a single to right all the way into the right-field bullpen for a two-base error.

There were four wild pitches, a run-scoring balk, two batters hit by pitches, nine walks, 20 strikeouts, two plays that were recorded as caught stealing but had no outs recorded, and a multitide of poor decisions by baserunners or fielders. There were 22 runs scored in the game, but only 16 RBIs.

The Sixers actually out-hit the Quakes, 13-12, with Preston Mattingly (4-for-5, three runs), Trayvon Robinson (3-for-5, two runs) and Pedro Baez (3-for-3, two RBI) leading the way. No Quake had more than two hits, but Matt Sweeney and Julio Perez each went 2-for-4 with three runs and two RBI.

The Sixers were 11-for-21 in the 1st, third, seventh and eighth innings, and 2-for-16 with no runs in the other five innings.

Almost lost in the game was the impressive end to an otherwise forgettable outing by Sixers starter Chris Withrow.

After allowing six runs in the first three innings, Withrow came out for the fourth (and what turned out to be his last) inning and retired the side in order, striking out three Quakes (Alberto Rosario, Phillips and Fuller) on 10 total pitches.

Quakes starter Robert Fish, after throwing 27 pitches in the first inning, needed only  five to retire the Sixers in order in the second inning.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, because it doesn’t show up in the box score. But in the third inning, after hitting what appeared to be a two-run double to tie the score 5-5, the Sixers’ Scott Van Slyke was called out. Why? It appeared to be because he passed the runner on first, Pedro Baez, before making it to second. Instead it’s a two-run single and Van Slyke was out for the second out.

All in all, a bizarre game, but one that could be topped at some point this season in a league known for wild and crazy games.