World Series Game 1

Game 1 is in Miami with the DH rule in effect.  New York has ace Stephen Hamburg on the mound to face lefty Brad Moulds from Miami.  With the DH rule, and a lefty pitcher, New York elects to upgrade their defense by playing Chad White (normal LF) at DH, and bringing in backup CF Luis Harris to Play LF where he is pretty darned good defensively.

In the bottom of the first, Miami's Billy Bass singles, steals 2nd, and scores on a 2-run homerun from1B Trevor Burton.  Miami makes it 3-0 in the 2nd with a Ricky Buckley single, stolen base, and ultimately scoring on a Ramon Torra 2 out single.

In the top of the 4th, New York finally broke through on a solo homerun from SS David Jackson.  After that, both pitchers settled in, but Miami still kept running wild, accumulating a total of 5 stolen bases in the game.  New York had a good chance in the top of the 6th, with Lee Thompson getting a lead off single.  Despite having great stealing ability, NewYork elected to let their hitters hit with the meat of the order due up.  After a fly out, W. Gehrig Bear hit into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

In the bottom of the 6th, Miami looked poised to put the game out of reach.  With 1 out, Armando Ortiz singled and stole second base.  He moved to third base on a balk and then Ricky Buckley drew a walk to make it first and third.  New York then elected to play the infield in, thinking that even 1 run would probably put the game out of reach given their putrid offense.  Oswipe Cabrera hit a hard grounder to second base that was not deep enough to score the run.  Cal Mathis flew out to centerfield to end the inning.  

In the 7th inning, Miami relieved Moulds for the righty Lou Watson with Chad White due up.  Watson got the first 2 out before a Devan Arceneaux error allowed Todd Bohlander to reach second base.  After a hit by pitch to Bowman, the light hitting Luis Harris was due up.  Despite a tight situation, New York elected for Harris to hit.  He delivered a clutch 2 out single, with Bohlander beating the throw home to make the score 3-2.  Facing the lefty Daniel Klein, Miami relieved Watson for the lefty Travis Howard who struck out Klein to end the inning.

After a 1-2-3 7th inning for Hamburg, New York had the top of the lineup due up in the 8th.  Facing the lefty throwing Howard, lefty lead off man Lee Thompson hit a solo homerun to tie the game at 3. With 2 out, Chad white singled and tried to steal second base, but was gunned down by Mathis to end the inning.  In the bottom of the 8th, Miami had their 3-4-5 hitters due up (all lefties).  New York brought in dominant lefty Stephen Jiannetti who struck out Arceneaux, Burton, and got Ortiz to pop up.


With the score tied at 3 in the top of the 9th, Miami wasted no time in bringing in their dominant (and highly organized) closer Dwight Schrute.  Schrute  had another dominant season as the closer with 7 wins, 35 saves, a 1.04 ERA, and 0.88 WHIP.  He is a tremendous winning pitcher, and as UTE announcer Eddie of Utah so rightly points out, you cannot spell Schrute without U-T-E.  

Schrute started things in style by striking out the first batter.  With rightfielder Todd Bohlander due up, New York pinch took the opportunity to bring in their best pinch hitter, September call-up and career minor league 1B Carlos Ramirez.  Ramirez accomplished his goal by working a walk.  With no speed on the basepaths, and needing to replace Ramirez in the bottom of the inning for defense anyway, New York manager George Kird brought in his speedy defense-first RF Victor Jacobs.

With the light hitting catcher Jeff Bowman due up, Victor had the green light and stole 2nd base.  Now it was decision time.  Do you play it safe and not run yourself out of the inning, thinking a hit might be needed anyway, or do you test the strong armed Cal Mathis?  Against Schrute, George Kird was not thinking a hit would be in the cards.  Jacobs got the pitch he was looking for and took off to third...SAFE.

With the go-ahead run on third base and 1 out, Miami had to pull the infield in.  New York was just hoping Bowman could put the ball in play against Schrute.  Bowman got a decent pitch and hit a hard liner into centerfield.  Peter Rabbit did not want to allow a hit on his watch and came barreling in to make an incredible diving catch.  Unfortunately for Miami, Victor Jacobs had the play read and was waiting to see what happened while standing on third base.  Assuming the out, Jacobs was able to tag up, and Rabbit, who had laid out to make the catch, could not do anything to prevent the go-ahead sacrifice fly.  Schrute got Luis Harris to end the inning, but New York led 4-3.

In the bottom of the 9th, New York had its best team defense possible and brought in the well-rested Jonathan Papelbrad to try to close out the game.  In a battle of two ET's, Papelbrad induced a soft groundout back to the mound from Ricky Buckley.  Orlando Cabrera then flew out to left field.  Down to their last out, Miami brought in their best pinch hitter, Johnny Lewis for Cal Mathis.  Strike Three, ballgame over.

New York wins Game One by the final score of 4-3.