The Wrap Up

The one advantage of playing the 3^rd and deciding game of the ABL Grand Final series at 12pm (West Coast time) is that when you win, you can get a solid 6-8 hours of partying under your belt compared to a regular 7pm start! You can rest assured that the Perth Heat will be tilting numerous cold ones right about now as they celebrate their resounding win against the Adelaide Bite in the inaugural ABL season. As per the rest of the series, let the Defensive Specialist highlight a couple of key points:

• You can bet ABL coaches around the country will be scouring the local competitions looking for the next Trevor Caugheys and Ben Moores. We discussed Caughey yesterday and we need to pour out some ink on his teammate who took the hill in game 3 and submitted a complete game, 10 strikeout performance to lead his team to the Championship. Aside from a 9^th inning blast from Stefan Welch, Moore was in complete command surrendering only 4 hits (1 was a can of corn pop-up that second baseman Luke Hughes should have caught). The performances of Moore and Caughey highlight the kind of talent floating around in local leagues and demonstrate how club teams have thrown their support behind the ABL by allowing the talent that they’ve bankrolled to participate.

• Moore needs more than one paragraph! the righty befuddled the Bite with his funky ¾ delivery, Frisbee slider and roadrunner change up that had good hitters utterly confounded (see Latimore, Quincy as the prime example). Moore’s ability to get ahead and throw any pitch in any count proved to be the difference as he quieted a fearful lineup that beat up numerous pitchers throughout the season.

• The Heat managed to get on top of yet another team in the fifth inning, this time putting Paul Mildren to the sword (who was on a short leash in game 3  as Manager Harris could not afford to let the game get out of hand). Mitch Graham was extremely lucky with 2 strikes as he took a fastball down and in that could very easily have been strike 3. Mildren bounded off the mound expecting to get the call. The very next pitch Graham drove a 2 run double into the right centre gap to put the Heat ahead. As Al Pacino said in “On Any Given Sunday” – it’s all about inches!

• Luke Hughes must have something going on with the official scorers because he was credited with a double in the bottom of the 8^th when he singled to centre fielder James McOwen. Tim Kennelly running on second base was waved home by manager Brooke Knight on Hughes’ ground ball up the middle.  McOwen’s throw was cash money but Kennelly executed an outstanding slide that saw him hook his foot around to touch the plate ahead of the sweeping tag (that actually missed making contact). Hughes being smarter than your average bear continued around first and cruised into second base. A very intelligent piece of base running but not something worthy of a double. 

• Kudos to umpire Brett Robson who got the bang bang call just right in signaling Kennelly safe at the plate. 

• Robbie Widlansky took some almighty hacks all series and finally brought the thunder in the 8^th inning as he blasted a Darren Fidge fastball out to centrefield. Widlansky is best described as a professional hitter for 2 reasons 1) he swings it pretty good and 2) he is a butcher defensively as evidenced by the fly ball that he dropped in left field.  Interestingly though, Widlansky’s ball would have been a long out 2 years ago – when the decision was made to bring the fences in by about 40 feet in centrefield. The shed viewers could see behind the centrefield wall actually sits inside where the old fence was. Talk about Death Valley. 

So we have our first champion in the new Australian Baseball League.  It’s been an interesting season and the Defensive Specialist has thoroughly enjoyed having baseball back on the big stage. For all the skepticism before the season commenced, it’s been a pretty solid product that can only continue to get better. While this sounds like the Defensive Specialist signing off for the offseason, do not fret – your old pal has a couple of rock star blog posts up his sleeve that will be sure to keep you engrossed for at least 15 minutes per week.

Well done to the Perth Heat – 2010 / 2011 ABL Champions