Situational Hitting Dooms Bandits in Close Championship Loss to Talons
Power Outage at the Worst Time
Have you ever experienced a power outage at the wrong time? It may have hindered something important you were doing at the time, and your production was just halted.
That is how it felt to see the Bandits’ offense operate against the Talons in Tuscaloosa.
League’s Best Offense Stalls Out
The Bandits, who have been the league’s best offense all season, just couldn’t finish the job. They had faced the Talons eight times prior to the Champ Series, but this time around one of the worst things in bat and ball sports reared its head.
The failure to capitalize.
The Numbers Tell the Story
In two games combined, the Bandits outhit the Talons 13 to 6, but the situational hitting stats were loud and telling of the Bandits’ downfall. Even though it seemed they were completely shut down with no hope at all, that just wasn’t the actual story.
Situational hitting was the snake that bit the Bandits. In both games combined, they were 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position. That stat will often tell the story of how a team loses close games, and the fact that the Bandits lost the whole series by a combined three runs is alarming.
Missed Chances for Both Teams
Now, on the other side, the Talons weren’t great in those areas either. As a matter of fact, in game one the Talons were 0-for-10 with runners on base, and 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
Outside of Tori Vidales’ solo home run in the fourth inning of that game, the Bandits pretty much handed them the opportunities to take the lead in the fifth inning. They scored two runs without a hit.
“We had opportunities,” Nuveman Deniz said. “We just couldn’t cash in with runners in scoring position. But also, we can’t give free passes, right? The free passes killed us all year long, and they did again. They scored two runs with no hits in that inning. Kudos to them for doing the little things.”
(via Bruce Miles, Bandits Beat Writer)
Corrick and the Talons Defense Delivered
Now, I would be totally remiss if I didn’t give the Talons their credit for putting a stop to the Bandits’ efforts in those situations. After game one, Georgina Corrick told us about the trust in her defense and the ability to still play freely in those spots.
“So knowing that I can kind of work my defense and trust that I can throw myself off of the plate or make a heavy change of speed, which is what I usually do, trusting that they’re going to be working behind me, hopefully try and turn some double plays, be able to cover the gaps that usually aren’t covered.”
“It gives me a lot of freedom to throw what I want to throw as opposed to trying to do the big strikeouts, which, unfortunately, big strikeouts are sometimes high risk, high reward. You throw a pitch that’s a big strikeout pitch, it also can be a big home run pitch. So it gives me a lot of opportunity to work with the ground,” said Corrick.
I guess you can say that pitching and great defense trumped the hot offense in this series, but the Bandits didn’t do themselves any favors either. Both things can be true.
Just Enough to Get the Job Done
Game two was just one swing of the bat for the Talons, late in the game from Sydney Romero. Even before that, the Bandits had opportunities to push across runs, but didn’t.
Often times this happens in softball. When you have two high powered teams going at it, especially for the championship, it all comes down to the simple things. The Talons just were the ones that found just enough to get the job done.
Bottom of the third especially stood out. Bubba Nickles-Camarena led off with a single. Then with one out, Bella Dayton placed a perfect hit to Fouts, who couldn’t make a play. Runners on the corners with one out turned into bases loaded with two outs after Coffel walked, but that’s where it all stopped.
If you can’t capitalize on your opportunities, you sure can’t give the other team the help to capitalize, and I feel like that is where the Bandits faltered in the series.
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